{"id":13551,"date":"2018-10-21T00:53:52","date_gmt":"2018-10-20T16:53:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/ariane-5-launches-two-satellites-on-7-year-voyage-to-mercury\/"},"modified":"2018-10-21T00:53:52","modified_gmt":"2018-10-20T16:53:52","slug":"ariane-5-launches-two-satellites-on-7-year-voyage-to-mercury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/ariane-5-launches-two-satellites-on-7-year-voyage-to-mercury\/","title":{"rendered":"Ariane 5 launches two satellites on 7-year voyage to Mercury"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Credit: ESA\/CNES\/Arianespace \u2013 Photo Optique Video du CSG \u2013 JM Guillon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A powerful European Ariane 5 rocket blasted off from French Guiana late Friday and boosted a pair of satellites into space for a seven-year plunge into the inner solar system, a voyage requiring seven planetary flybys to slow down enough in the sun\u2019s gravitational clutches to slip into orbit around hellish Mercury.<\/p>\n

The $1.9 billion BepiColombo project is only the second, after NASA\u2019s MESSENGER mission, to attempt putting a spacecraft into orbit around the solar system\u2019s innermost planet, one of the most technically challenging missions ever attempted by the European Space Agency and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA.<\/p>\n

The Ariane 5 rocket, the most powerful in Europe\u2019s inventory and one of the most reliable heavy-lift boosters in the world, thundered to life at 9:45 p.m. EDT (GMT-4; 10:45 p.m. local time) and majestically climbed away from the Guiana Space Center on the northern coast of South America.<\/p>\n

Lighting up the European space base for dozens of miles around, the rocket arced away to the east over the Atlantic Ocean atop a brilliant jet of flame from its two solid-fuel boosters, rapidly accelerating as it burned through five tons of propellant per second.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was fantastic!\u201d Johannes Benkhoff, the BepiColombo project scientist said after taking in his first launch. \u201cI\u2019ve never seen that before, and it was great. It was like a big fireball going through the sky, it was really nice.\u201d<\/p>\n

The climb to space went smoothly and 27 minutes after liftoff, ESA\u2019s Mercury Planetary Orbiter and JAXA\u2019s Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter, both attached to an ESA-supplied carrier spacecraft known as the Mercury Transfer Module, were released from the Ariane 5\u2019s upper stage to fly on their own.<\/p>\n

\u201cArianespace is delighted to announce that BepiColombo (is) on its targeted escape orbit and is now on its way towards Mercury,\u201d said St\u00e9phane Isra\u00ebl, chief executive officer of Arianespace. \u201cToday\u2019s new success marks the beginning of a seven-year trip for BepiColombo, taking advantage of gravitational assistance from Earth, Venus and Mercury. What an exciting journey!\u201d<\/p>\n

While it may seem counterintuitive, it will require more energy to reach Mercury \u2014 a change in velocity of 11.5 miles per second \u2014 than it did for NASA\u2019s New Horizon\u2019s probe to reach distant Pluto.<\/p>\n

The transfer module carrying the two satellites is equipped with ion thrusters and more traditional liquid-fueled rocket engines. But the lion\u2019s share of the needed energy will come from planetary flybys, using the gravity of Earth, Venus and Mercury to help shape the trajectory and put the brakes on, slowing the BepiColombo spacecraft enough to achieve orbit around Mercury.<\/p>\n

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The BepiColombo spacecraft is pictured in launch configuratin shortly before stacking atop the Ariane 5 rocket in French Guiana. Credit: ESA\/CNES\/Arianespace \u2013 Photo Optique Video du CSG \u2013 S. Martin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The trip inward doesn\u2019t actually begin until April 2020 when the BepiColombo spacecraft races past Earth, using the planet\u2019s gravity to bend the trajectory onto a course carrying the satellites toward Venus. Two Venus flybys are planned, one in late 2020 and the other in August 2021, to deflect the trajectory toward Mercury.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s still not enough to do the job. Six flybys of Mercury are required over the next four years to slow the spacecraft down enough to be captured by the planet\u2019s relatively feeble gravity.<\/p>\n

That milestone will occur in December 2025 when ESA\u2019s MPO satellite and JAXA\u2019s MMO, by then released from the carrier spacecraft, settle into different orbits around Mercury\u2019s poles.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe cruise will be just above seven years,\u201d said ESA Project Manager Ulrich Reininghaus. \u201cWe will fly by the Earth (once), two times Venus and six times Mercury itself before we come into the orbit, which allows us to capture with the small gravity of planet Mercury against the big sun.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat means when we fly, we constantly brake against the sun,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen you fly toward the most heavy element (of the solar system) you constantly accelerate. We don\u2019t want that. That\u2019s why we decelerate.\u201d<\/p>\n

The MPO satellite\u2019s orbit will have a low point of about 300 miles and a high point of some 930 miles. JAXA\u2019s MMO will orbit at a higher altitude, ranging up to 7,200 miles above the surface.<\/p>\n

Once on station, the spacecraft will have to endure blistering 660-degree temperatures at Mercury\u2019s average distance of 37 million miles from the sun.<\/p>\n

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Artist\u2019s concept of the BepiColombo spacecraft. Credit: Airbus Defense and Space<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cMercury is three times closer to the sun and therefore the radiation and the heat we\u2019re getting from Mercury is 10 times higher,\u201d said Benkhoff. \u201cSo everything \u2026 had to withstand the higher temperatures, but also the higher radiation doses, which we got from the solar wind. And for that, we need special insulation of our spacecraft, special materials for the antenna, for the solar panels. That was a very big challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n

Only two other spacecraft have ever visited Mercury and only one of them went into orbit.<\/p>\n

NASA\u2019s Mariner 10 was the first spacecraft to make the trip, flying past the planet three times in 1974 and 1975 and collecting the first close-up photos and other data at altitudes as low as 200 miles. Mariner 10 also was the first interplanetary spacecraft to utilize gravitational assist flybys, a procedure that quickly become commonplace.<\/p>\n

NASA\u2019s Messenger spacecraft, launched in 2004, reached orbit around Mercury in 2011 and spent four years studying the planet\u2019s surface and space environment with a suite of sophisticated instruments. While extremely successful, scientists still have major unanswered questions.<\/p>\n

Enter BepiColombo, named after Giuseppe \u201cBepi\u201d Colombo, an Italian mathematician and engineer who figured out that Mercury rotated on its axis three times for every two orbits of the sun and suggested how gravity assist might be used to reach the planet,<\/p>\n

ESA\u2019s Mercury Planetary Orbiter carries 11 instruments, including cameras, spectrometers, a radiometer, laser altimeter, magnetometer and others will focus on the planet\u2019s surface and internal composition.<\/p>\n

JAXA\u2019s Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter is equipped with five instruments, including a magnetometer, ion spectrometer, electron energy analyzer, plasma detectors and a camera. It is designed to map out the planet\u2019s magnetic field and its interactions with the sun.<\/p>\n

Among the questions scientists hope to answer are:<\/p>\n

\u2013Mercury has a higher overall density than any other terrestrial world. Why?
\n\u2013Is the planet\u2019s core at least partially liquid or solid throughout?
\n\u2013Is the planet tectonically active?
\n\u2013How does such a small planet maintain an intrinsic magnetic field, and how does it interact with the solar wind?
\n\u2013Iron is presumably the major constituent of Mercury, but it is not seen in spectroscopic analysis. Why?
\n\u2013Do permanently shadowed craters near Mercury\u2019s poles hold reservoirs of ice or sulphur?
\n\u2013What produces a thin \u201cexosphere\u201d around the planet?<\/p>\n

\u201cStudying Mercury is crucial to better understand the formation of our solar system, how Earth formed and evolved and where we are coming from,\u201d said Benkhoff.<\/p>\n

BepiColombo, he said, will help scientists \u201cunderstand the nature of the planet itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to characterize the surface, what material is on the surface, we\u2019d like to measure temperatures, we\u2019d like to see the interaction with the solar wind, which is special on Mercury because it is so close to the sun,\u201d he said. \u201cMercury has a magnetic field, which is like Earth\u2019s, a dynamo field. We would like to understand that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once in orbit, the BepiColombo orbiters are expected to collect data for one year with a possible one-year mission extension.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Credit: ESA\/CNES\/Arianespace \u2013 Photo Optique Video du CSG \u2013 JM Guillon A powerful European Ariane 5 rocket blasted off from French Guiana late Friday and boosted a pair of satellites into space for a seven-year plunge into the inner solar system, a voyage requiring seven planetary flybys to slow down enough in the sun\u2019s gravitational […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1540,2448,498,2039,1775,2858,831,1773],"class_list":["post-13551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-ariane-5","tag-ariane-group","tag-arianespace","tag-bepicolombo","tag-electric-propulsion","tag-encapsulation","tag-european-space-agency","tag-guiana-space-center"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13551"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13551\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}