BepiColombo – Mercury Swing-Bys

Abstract

The BepiColombo spacecraft was launched on 20 October 2018 from the European spaceport in French Guyana and is currently on its way to Mercury. On its way, the spacecraft will swing-by Mercury six times in its stacked configuration, before releasing the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO) and the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) in their corresponding orbits around the target planet.

Introduction

Mercury is in many ways a very different planet from what we were expecting. On 20 October 2018 the BepiColombo spacecraft [1] started its 7 year journey to the innermost terrestrial planet to investigate on the fundamental questions about its evolution, composition, interior, magnetosphere, and exosphere.

BepiColombo is a joint project between the Euro- pean Space Agency (ESA) and the Japanese Aero- space Exploration Agency (JAXA). The Mission con- sists of two orbiters, the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO). From their dedicated orbits the two space- craft will be studying the planet and its environment.

The mission has been named in honor of Giuseppe (Bepi) Colombo (1920–1984), who was a brilliant Italian mathematician, who made many significant contributions to planetary research and celestial mechanics.

During the cruise phase, the spacecraft flies in a stacked configuration: the MMO and MPO are mounted ontop of the Mercury Transfer Module (MTM). As a consequence, most remote sensing instruments onboard the MPO are mounted towards the MTM and have a fully obstructed field-of-view. The MMO instrumentation is shielded by a protection shield (MOSIF) and several instruments still await the deployment on measurement booms.

Despite the reduced instrument availability, scientific and engineering operations will be scheduled during the cruise phase, especially during the swing-bys.

Mercury Swing-bys

Following the Earth and two Venus swing-bys, six Mercury swing-bys are foreseen from October 2021 until 9 January 2025. The poster will discuss the flyby geometries and potential operation opportunities, in comparison with the three MESSENGER Mercury swing-bys from 2008 and 2009 [2][3].

References: [1] Benkhoff, J., et al. (2010) Planet. Space Sci. 58, 2-20. [2] Baker, D.N. et al. (2011) Planet. Space Sci 59, 2066-2074. [3] McNutt, R.L. et al. (2010), Acta Astronautica V67, Iss 7-8, p 681-687