After 6 years of travel, the European spacecraft BepiColombo may not reach Mercury

It is one of the most ambitious missions of the European Space Agency, in collaboration with the Japanese Space Agency. The BepiColombo mission is in danger.

It has been flying through space since 2018, on its way to Mercury, the least explored planet in the inner Solar System. When there is barely a year left to arrive, A failure in the thrusters has endangered the BepiColombo mission of ESA and JAXA.

The BepiColombo mission is one of the most ambitious that the European Space Agency (ESA) has launched, in collaboration with the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA).

A mission of 2,000 million euros that aims explore Mercuryone of the least known planets in the inner Solar System.

Problems in the BepiColombo mission

The BepiColombo spacecraft took off in October 2018, aboard an Ariane 5 rocket. It is a novel design in three parts: the ESA Planetary Orbiter, the JAXA Magnetoscopic Orbiter, and the Transfer Module.

This module is key, since it is responsible for capturing solar energy and converting it into electricity, to power all the systems of both orbiters, and also the thrusters of the BepiColombo spacecraft that transports them to Mercury.

BepiColombo plans to deploy the orbiters to Mercury in December 2025. After almost six years of travel and just a year and a half to finish, A problem in the propellants has jeopardized the mission.

It must be said that it is not that the European-Japanese ship will take seven years to reach Mercury. Actually, It has already passed close to the planet three times, and in September it will make the fourth approach. It will complete another two before releasing the orbiters.

On such long trips (Mercury is between 77 and 122 million kilometers from Earth), The ships use the gravity of the moons and planets as a “catapult” to gain speed, or as a handbrake.

In this case, BepiColombo will approach Mercury three more times, to stop, and thus be able to be “trapped” by the planet’s gravity, so that the orbiters can be deployed. Right now it is going too fast, and braking with its own thrusters would require immense energy, which the ship does not have.

As explained by the ESA in a statementon April 26, The BepiColombo’s thrusters began to lose energy, without even knowing the reason. On May 7 they managed to stabilize them at 90% power, but they have not yet managed to reach 100%.

Now they are working in two directions. On the one hand, discover the cause of the failure. On the other hand, keep that 90% power stable, and redo the calculations for the different turns.

If they get it, The next approach to Mercury in September can be carried out without problems. But the following are a mystery. That is why ESA, right now, cannot guarantee that BepiColombo will be able to release the orbiters in December 2025.

The orbiters are designed to study the composition, atmosphere, magnetosphere and history of Mercury, as well as to answer questions about the formation and evolution of our Solar System. Let’s cross our fingers that ESA technicians can fix the thrustersand the BepiColombo successfully completes its mission to Mercury.