Bepi Colombo
OBJECTIVE:
Bepi Colombo will provide the best understanding of Mercury to date. It consists of two individuals orbiters, the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO), that will map the planet, and the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO), that will investigate its magnetosphere.
The first spacecraft that got close to Mercury with 3 flybys is Mariner 10.
The trajectory of these flybys was proposed by the Italian scientist Giuseppe(Bepi) Colombo (1920-1984). He is also known by the study of the mystery that the rotation period (58 days) and the revolution period around the sun (88 days) of Mercury is in the 2:3 resonance.
MMO and MPO will be combined with Solar Electric Propulsion Module (SEPM) and Chemical Propulsion Module (CPM), both provided by ESA. The unified module will be launched with Ariane 5 rocket and travel to Mercury. The launch date, according to the plan of October 2012, is scheduled for August 2015.
In the interplanetary space, the unified module will be propelled by the SEPM which makes “small but steady/continuous” propulsion, associated with swing-bys with the Moon, Venus, and Mercury. Just before the insertion into the orbit around Mercury, SEPM will be separated. After the separation of SEPM, the unified module will make a rapid slow-down by the CPM to come into the planned MMO orbit around Mercury. MMO will be separated at this stage to begin independent operations, and the CPM will make the second propulsion for lowering the orbit of MPO. Finally, MPO will be separated from the CPM.
Both spacecrafts will make scientific observations for more than 1 earth year (4 Mercury years).
PARTNERSHIP:
BepiColombo is a joint mission between ESA and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), executed under ESA leadership, being the first large-sized Europe-Japan joint mission.
ISAS/JAXA is responsible for the MMO while ESA is responsible for the MPO.
INSTRUMENTS
| BELA – BepiColombo Laser Altimeter | ||
| Co-Principal Investigator | Co-Principal Investigator | |
| Nicolas Thomas University of Bern, Department of Space Research Switzerland |
Tilman Spohn DLR Institut für Planetenforschung, Berlin Germany |
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| ISA – Italian Spring Accelerometer | ||
| Principal Investigator | ||
| Valerio Iafolla INAF-IAPS Istituto di Astrofisica e Planetologia Spaziali, Rome Italy |
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| MERMAG – Magnetic Field Investigation | ||
| Principal Investigator | Co-Principal Investigator | |
| Karl-Heinz Glassmeier Technische Universität Braunschweig Germany |
C.M. Carr The Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College London United Kingdom |
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| MERTIS – Mercury Radiometer and Thermal Imaging Spectrometer | ||
| Principal Investigator | Co-Principal Investigator | |
| Harald Hiesinger University of Münster Germany |
Jörn Helbert DLR Institut für Planetenforschung, Berlin Germany |
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| MGNS – Mercury Gamma-Ray and Neutron Spectrometer | ||
| Principal Investigator | Co-Principal Investigator | |
| Igor Mitrofanov Russian Academy of Sciences, Space Research Institute – IKI Moscow Russian Federation |
Leonid Gurtvits Joint Institute for VLBI in Europe – JIVE The Netherlands |
|
| MIXS – Mercury Imaging X-ray Spectrometer | ||
| Principal Investigator | Co-Principal Investigator | |
| Emma Bunce Space Research Centre University of Leicester United Kingdom |
K. Muinonen University of Helsinki, Department of Physics Finland |
|
| MORE – Mercury Orbiter Radio science Experiment | ||
| Principal Investigator | Co-Principal Investigator | |
| Luciano Iess University of Rome “La Sapienza” Italy |
Sami Asmar Jet Propulsion Laboratory/NASA, Pasadena USA |
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| PHEBUS – Probing of Hermean Exosphere by Ultraviolet Spectroscopy | ||
| Principal Investigator | Co-Principal Investigator | Co-Principal Investigator |
| Eric Quemerais LATMOS-IPSL, Guyancourt France |
S. Okano Planetary Plasma & Atmospheric Research Center, Tohoku University, Sendai Japan |
O. Korablev Space Research Institute-IKI, Moscow Russian Federation |
| SERENA – Search for Exosphere Refilling and Emitted Neutral Abundances (neutral and ionised particle analyser) | ||
| Principal Investigator | Co-Principal Investigators | Co-Principal Investigators |
| Stefano Orsini INAF-IAPS Istituto di Astrofisica e Planetologia Spaziali, Rome Italy |
S. A. Livi Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, Texas USA |
S. Barabash Swedish Institute of Space Physics (IRF), Kiruna Sweden |
| Herbert Lichtenegger Space Research Institute, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Graz Austria |
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| SIMBIO-SYS – Spectrometers and Imagers for MPO BepiColombo Integrated Observatory – HRIC, STC, VIHI | ||
| Principal Investigator | Co-Principal Investigators | Co-Principal Investigators |
| Enrico Flamini Italian Space Agency – ASI, Rome Italy |
F. Capaccioni INAF-IAPS (Istituto di Astrofisica e Planetologia Spaziali), Rome Italy |
P. Palumbo INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Capodimonte, Napoli Italy |
| G. Cremonese INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova Italy |
A. Doressoundiram LESIA-Observatoire de Paris, Meudon France |
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| Y. Langevin Institut d’Astrophysique Spatiale (IAS), Orsay France |
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| SIXS – Solar Intensity X-ray and particle Spectrometer | ||
| Principal Investigator | Co-Principal Investigator | |
| Juhani Huovelin University of Helsinki, Department of Physics Finland |
M. Grande Institute of Mathematics and Physics, Aberystwyth University United Kingdom |
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SCHEDULE:
The mission is due for launch in January 27, 2017 and will reach Mercury in 2024 after a six-year journey towards the inner Solar System, the planned mission lifetime being about one year after the arrival.
NAME:
The project is named after Professor Giuseppe (Bepi) Colombo (1920-1984) from the University of Padua, Italy, a mathematician and engineer of astonishing imagination. It was he who suggested to NASA how to use a gravity-assist swing-by of Venus to place the Mariner 10 spacecraft in a solar orbit that would allow it to fly by Mercury three times in 1974-5.
