NASA joins the Italian Space Agency on a mission aiming to explore planet Mercury.
Charles Bolden, NASA’s current administrator and former astronaut, and Enrico Saggese, president of ISA, had a meeting last Thursday and ended up signing an agreement that the two agencies will work together to make the BepiColombo mission to Mercury possible. Further planetary explorations will be pursued by the team once this mission becomes successful.
The BepiColombo mission was initially a partnership between the European Space Agency (ESA) and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) as they aim to explore Mercury by 2015. It will have three major components: the Mercury Transfer Module (MTM), the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO, and the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO). The MTM and MPO will use European technology while the MMO will use Japanese technology.
A spacecraft called Ariane 5 will be launched together with these components in 2015 and expected to reach Mercury by 2022. It will spend one year exploring and mapping the entire surface of the planet especially the part of the planet that was permanently hidden from the sun. It may be extended upon approval of the agencies.
Other objectives of the mission were to identify the origin of the planet, study the atmosphere, geology, and composition of the smallest planet, analyze its magnetic field, and verify Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity.
The vehicle will use solar electric propulsion in order to reach Mercury. This technology combines magnetism and electricity to push a ship in space. In the case of the BepiColombo mission, it will use the Moon, Earth, Venus, and Mercury’s magnetic field or gravity.
The scientists believe that the BepiColombo mission is a tough one because its orbit is very close to the sun with a distance of 36 million miles away. They are also hopeful that the vehicle will reach Mercury and will not be pulled by the Sun’s gravity.
To date, only two spacecrafts made its way to Mercury: NASA’s Mariner 10 in 1974 and the Messenger in 2008. Both were able to capture images of planet Mercury.
