BepiColombo Science Investigations During Cruise and Flybys at the Earth, Venus and Mercury

• DOI: 10.1007/s11214-021-00797-9
• Publication Date: 2021-02-11T16:22:14Z
• Authors: Valeria Mangano; Melinda Dósa; Markus Fränz; Anna Milillo; Joana S. Oliveira; Yeon Joo Lee; Susan McKenna-Lawlor; Davide Grassi; Daniel Heyner; Alexander S. Kozyrev; Roberto Peron; Jörn Helbert; Sebastien Besse; Sara de la Fuente; Elsa Montagnon; Joe Zender; Martin Volwerk; Jean-Yves Chaufray; James A. Slavin; Harald Krüger; Alessandro Maturilli; Thomas Cornet; Kazumasa Iwai; Yoshizumi Miyoshi; Marco Lucente; Stefano Massetti; Carl A. Schmidt; Chuanfei Dong; Francesco Quarati; Takayuki Hirai; Ali Varsani; Denis Belyaev; Jun Zhong; Emilia K. J. Kilpua; Bernard V. Jackson; Dusan Odstrcil; Ferdinand Plaschke; Rami Vainio; Riku Jarvinen; Stavro Lambrov Iv...; Ákos Madár; Géza Erdős; Christina Plainaki; Tommaso Alberti; Sae Aizawa; Johannes Benkhoff; Go Murakami; Eric Quemerais; Harald Hiesinger; Igor G. Mitrofanov; Luciano Iess; Francesco Santoli; Stefano Orsini; Herbert Lichtenegger; Gunther Laky; Stas Barabash; Richard Moissl; Juhani Huovelin; Yasumasa Kasaba; Yoshifumi Saito; Masanori Kobayashi; Wolfgang Baumjohann
• Keywords: solar system exploration; space navigation; space telecommunications; spacecraft tracking systems; aerospace engineering; planetary science; MERTIS; BepiColombo; 380; Planetare Labore; Earth; Mercury; Bepicolombo; Venus; 01 natural sciences; 7. Clean energy; [SDU] Sciences of the Universe [physics]; [SDU]Sciences of the Universe [physics]; 13. Climate action; Cruise; Flyby; 0105 earth and related environmental sciences

AbstractThe dual spacecraft mission BepiColombo is the first joint mission between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) to explore the planet Mercury. BepiColombo was launched from Kourou (French Guiana) on October 20th, 2018, in its packed configuration including two spacecraft, a transfer module, and a sunshield. BepiColombo cruise trajectory is a long journey into the inner heliosphere, and it includes one flyby of the Earth (in April 2020), two of Venus (in October 2020 and August 2021), and six of Mercury (starting from 2021), before orbit insertion in December 2025. A big part of the mission instruments will be fully operational during the mission cruise phase, allowing unprecedented investigation of the different environments that will encounter during the 7-years long cruise. The present paper reviews all the planetary flybys and some interesting cruise configurations. Additional scientific research that will emerge in the coming years is also discussed, including the instruments that can contribute.