Posted on 09/06/2026 6:44:20 AM PDT by BenLurkin
Mercury, the tiniest and least-explored planet in the inner solar system, is hiding mysteries far larger than itself — and finally, scientists will soon be getting not one but two spacecraft designed to decode the strange world.
That's thanks to the BepiColombo mission, a joint project of the European Space Agency (ESA) and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) that launched in October 2018. After a harrowing journey through the inner solar system, the mission is tackling a crucial maneuver on Thursday (Sept. 3): separating its science equipment from the transport that carried it all that way. By April 2027, scientists hope the mission's two instrument-heavy probes will be gathering a slew of observations that could help solve puzzles about Mercury — and maybe even the solar system we call home.
...
. By April, if all goes well, the mission will consist of two separate spacecraft gathering independent but coordinated data about Mercury.
Europe's Mercury Planetary Orbiter, or MPO, will focus on the planet proper. It's packed with 11 science instruments that will map the terrain, minerals in the crust, and the gravity field, investigate the hollows and volcanic deposits, and observe how the barrage of charged particles from the sun affects this innermost planet.
Japan's Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter, or Mio, meanwhile, will focus on the planet's surroundings — its magnetosphere and wispy atmosphere, as well as the dust cluttering up its neighborhood.
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BepiColombo#Names
BepiColombo is named after Giuseppe “Bepi” Colombo (1920–1984), a scientist, mathematician, and engineer at the University of Padua, Italy, who first proposed the interplanetary gravity assist manoeuvre used by the 1974 Mariner 10 mission, a technique now used frequently by planetary probes.[21]
Mio, the name of the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter, was selected from thousands of suggestions by the Japanese public. In Japanese, Mio means a waterway, and according to JAXA, it symbolizes the research and development milestones reached thus far, and wishes for safe travel ahead. JAXA said the spacecraft will travel through the solar wind just like a ship traveling through the ocean.[22] In Chinese and Japanese, Mercury is known as the “water star” (水星) according to wǔxíng.[23][24]
Why does it take so long to get to Mercury?
Ah.. I answered my own question:
They want to get into Mercury’s orbit, and therefore need to be going slowly enough when they arrive to be captured by Mercury’s gravity.
Apparently, it’s difficult to slow down in space - and burns a lot of fuel. They could have gotten there in 5 or 6 months, but they’d be going way too fast.
Unusually heavy traffic volume, plus the lights were against them.
OK, that answers the question for me. Makes sense.
They should take AOC's advice and go there at night when it's cooler.
> BepiColombo is named after Giuseppe “Bepi” Colombo (1920–1984), <
Thanks. I did look it up, and saw that Bepi was kinda like Joe, in Italian. I guessed it had something to do with Christopher Columbus. Boy, was I off on that!
Bebi Biden had to fight Pasta Pop, who was a bad dude.
To expand our knowledge of hot rocks?
BepiColombo just closed a few of its franchises in Colorado. :( Their baked spaghetti is to die for.
The government (aka public funding) funds all sorts of technology for national security and public health that could not be profitable for various reasons. Profit is NOT always necessary for a technology to benefit mankind and create good will.
NASA is merely an agency that hires various contractors at the lowest bid including SpaceX. Musk and SpaceX just have better marketing so they attracted more investors partially thanks to the internet (which was also created by the government for national security long before profitability). Most of SpaceX profit was from NASA contracts until the success of Starlink.
SpaceX utilized public domain and expired patented technology that was was funded by NASA. It cost many billions of taxpayer dollars to perform the destructive testing to obtain the data since no computers could model it. Further SpaceX engine developments since then are trade secrets to protect their profits so they are restricting future development by other entities even though they greatly benefited from public money. Musk did very similar with government electric car subsidies.
NASA I agree has been a laughing stock for decades due to ridiculous policies. Russian rocket engines were the most efficient in the world until 2019 release of the Raptor engine.
Can ya hear me now?
“To expand our knowledge of hot rocks?”
Only on one side. The planet rotates at the exact, or close to exact, speed that has kept one side facing the sun and the other side away from it as long as we’ve known about it. So one side is hot and the other is cold. Synchronous Rotation just like our moon.
They better have something worth bringing back or they just wasted a trip as we couldn’t survive there for little worth.
wy69
Hopefully it can transmit photos....and high quality ones would be even better!
Uranus is a lot closer.
“Thanks for our cooperation, Mercury. I’ll be going along now. Oh, just one more question!”
“According to NASA they lost all the technology from the 1960s“
Who told you that?
I cannot imagine, after COVID, what interest anyone would believe that government has in benefitting mankind or creating good will.
Musk has a vision that NASA does not. Clearly the profit-motive is better than anything the government can scare up.
I am comforted by the fact that, when Percival Lowell was documenting the Canals of Mars, he was wasting his own money.
I am not a Luddite. Today’s world is so small that one cannot wait for a WWII need for technological advancement. It will be too late. Having said that, there are severe limitations to government, I believe. For mankind to depend on it for benefit is a mistake.
34 posts?........We’re slipping!.......
The way I understand it… Things like the working documentation for building all the craft, etc. from Apollo (and other programs) are gone, unusuable, whatever. No one could begin to build the old moon buggy for you if you wanted one, for example.
We have the technology to build better and more efficient craft, etc., for the next missions back to the moon or anywhere else we want go within reach. Name the mission, work up the plans, secure the funding, sign the contracts, and people will get to work on it!
I believe that Mercury rotates still at about 1.5 times per revolution about the Sun. So, it does have a “day” and is, not yet, tidally locked to the Sun.
I think of it like a juggler tossing bowling pins around, but I could be wrong.
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