06:59 central time European time on January 8, the BepiColombo spacecraft successfully performed its sixth flyby of Mercury, the innermost planet in the solar system. This was a “gravity assist maneuver”, a move that used Mercury’s gravity to change the BepiColombo spacecraft’s trajectory, which would put it into orbit around the planet by the end of 2026.
BepiColombo is a joint mission between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) that will study the composition of Mercury. The spacecraft, made up of two probes – ESA’s Mercury Planetary Orbiter and JAXA’s Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter – was launched in the fall of 2018 and previously orbited the sun.
When it approaches Mercury again, the spacecraft will separate, and the two probes will head to their designated polar orbit. BepiColombo’s scientific work is then scheduled to begin in early 2027, with probes looking for information about how the planet formed and whether some of its craters contain water in the form of ice.
Until then, we’ll have to make do with the details in these three images taken by the spacecraft during its last flyby.