BepiColombo

The BepiColombo Mission to planet Mercury is a joint project between the European Space Agency ESA and the Japanese counterpart JAXA to be launched in 2013 and orbiting Mercury from 2018 onwards. The project named after Guiseppe (Bepi) Colombo consists of two spacecraft:

• the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) provided by ESA and
• the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO) provided by JAXA

providing for the first time two-point measurements in the vicinity of the closest planet in our solar system.

	Science Objectives
	Mission Facts
	The Journey
	Scientific Payload
	MPS contribution MPO: BELA SERENA-PICAM MIXS MMO: MPPE-MSA
	Related links
	BepiColombo publications by MPS members

 

MPO Total mass: 400 kg Payload mass: 50 kg	MMO Total mass: 220 kg Payload mass: 41 kg

 

Science objectives

(from ESA website)

• Origin and evolution of a planet close to the parent star
• Mercury as a planet: form, interior, structure, geology, composition and craters
• Mercury's vestigial atmosphere (exosphere): composition and dynamics
• Mercury's magnetized envelope (magnetosphere): structure and dynamics
• Origin of Mercury's magnetic field
• Test of Einstein's theory of general relativity

The scientific objectives behind BepiColombo can be viewed by considering the following 12 questions:

1. What can we learn from Mercury about the composition of the solar nebula and the formation of the planetary system?
2. Why is Mercury's normalized density markedly higher than that of all other terrestrial planets, Moon included?
3. Is the core of Mercury liquid or solid?
4. Is Mercury tectonically active today?
5. Why such a small planet does possess an intrinsic magnetic field, while Venus, Mars and the Moon do not have any?
6. Why do spectroscopic observations not reveal the presence of any iron, while this element is supposedly the major constituent of Mercury?
7. Do the permanently shadowed craters of the polar regions contain sulphur or water ice?
8. Is the unseen hemisphere of Mercury markedly different from that imaged by Mariner 10?
9. What are the production mechanisms of the exosphere?
10. In the absence of any ionosphere, how does the magnetic field interact with the solar wind?
11. Is Mercury's magnetised environment characterised by features reminiscent of the aurorae, radiation belts and magnetospheric substorms observed at Earth?
12. Since the advance of Mercury's perihelion was explained in terms of space-time curvature, can we take advantage of the proximity of the Sun to test general relativity with improved accuracy?

Mission Facts

Launch Date	Aug-2013
Mission End	Nominally 1 year in Mercury orbit until September 2020
Launch Vehicle	Soyuz 2-1B/Fregat-M
Launch Mass	2300 kg
Cruise	Heliocentric transfer orbit
At Mercury	MPO polar orbit 400 × 1500 km, 2.3 hr period MMO polar orbit 400 × 12 000 km, 9.2 hr period

The Journey

The trajectories of the MPO and the MMO are shown below compared to the orbit of the NASA Messenger spacecraft.

Scientific Payload

MPO:

BELA - BepiColombo Laser Altimeter
N.Thomas	Physikalisches Institut University of Bern, Switzerland	Co-PI
T. Spohn	DLR Inst. für Planetenforschung, Berlin, Germany	Co-PI
ISA - Italian Spring Accelerometer
V. Iafolla	CNR-IFSI, Rome, Italy	PI
MERMAG - Mercury Magnetometer
K.H. Glassmeier	Institute of Geophysics and Extraterrestrial Physics, Technical University of Braunschweig, Germany	PI
C.M. Carr	The Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College London, UK	Deputy PI
MERTIS-TIS - Mercury Thermal Infrared Spectrometer
E.K. Jessberger	Institut für Planetologie, University Münster, Germany	PI
MGNS - Mercury Gamma ray and Neutron Spectrometer
I. Mitrofanov	Institute for Space Research, Moscow, Russia	PI
MIXS - Mercury Imaging X-ray Spectrometer
G. Fraser	Space Research Centre, University of Leicester, UK	PI
K. Muinonen	Observatory Univ. of Helsinki, Finland	Co-PI
MORE - Mercury Orbiter Radio science Experiment
L. Iess	University of Rome "La Sapienza", Italy	PI
Sami Asmar	Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, USA	Co-PI
PHEBUS - Probing of Hermean Exosphere by Ultraviolet Spectroscopy
E. Chassefière	SA/IPSL, Université P&M Curie Paris, France	PI
S. Okano	Planetary Plasma & Atmospheric Research Center, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan	Co-PI
O. Korablev	IKI, Moscow, Russia	Co-PI
SERENA - Search for Exosphere Refilling and Emitted Neutral Abundances (Neutral and ionised particle analyser)
S. Orsini	CNR-IFSI, Rome, Italy	PI
S. A. Livi	Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, USA	Co-PI
S. Barabash	Swedish Inst. of Space Physics (IRF), Kiruna, Sweden	Co-PI
K. Torkar	Space Research Institute, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Graz, Austria	Co-PI
SIMBIO-SYS - Spectrometers and Imagers for MPO BepiColombo Integrated Observatory System (High resolution and stereo cameras, Visual and NIR spectrometer)
E. Flamini	Italian Space Agency, Rome, Italy	PI
F. Capaccioni	INAF-IASF, Rome, Italy	Co-PI
L. Colangeli	INAF-Osserv. Astronomico di Capodimonte, Napoli, Italy	Co-PI
G. Cremonese	INAF-Osserv. Astronomico di Padova, Italy	Co-PI
A. Doressoundiram	LESIA-Obs. de Paris, Meudon, France	Co-PI
O. Forni	Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale (IAS), Orsay, France	Co-PI
J. L. Josset	SPACE-X, Space Exploration, Neuchâtel, Switzerland	Co-PI
SIXS - Solar Intensity X-ray Spectrometer
J. Huovelin	Observatory University of Helsinki, Finland	PI
M. Grande	Space Science & Technol. Dept. CCLR-Rutherford Appleton Lab. Chilton, UK	Co-PI

MMO:

MERMAG-M/MGF - Mercury Magnetometer
W. Baumjohann	PI
A. Matsuoka	Co-PI
MPPE - Mercury Plasma Particle Experiment
Y. Saito	PI
J.-A. Sauvaud M. Hirahara S. Barabash	Co-PIs
PWI - Plasma Wave Instrument
H. Matsumoto	PI
J.-L. Bougeret L. Blomberg H. Kojima S. Yagitani	Co-PIs
MSASI - Mercury Sodium Atmospheric Spectral Imager
I. Yoshikawa	PI
O. Korablev	Co-PI
MDM - Mercury Dust Monitor
K. Nogami	PI
H. Ohashi	Co-PI

MPS contribution

MPS is involved in 4 different Instruments and will provide hardware for them. On the planetary orbiter MPS is responsible for components of the Laseraltimeter BELA, the particle package SERENA, and the x-ray spectrometer MIXS. On the magnetospheric orbiter the institute is involved in the particle package MPPE.

	BELA
	SERENA-PICAM
	MIXS
	MPPE-MSA

Related links

	BepiColombo
	BepiColombo MPO
	BepiColombo MMO
	Mariner 10 (Other Mercury mission)
	Messenger (Other Mercury mission)