Close Up Images of Venus Captured by the BepiColombo Probe

The spacecraft BepiColombo was launched in October 2018 for Europe’s first mission to Mercury. The mission is a joint endeavor between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), under the leadership of ESA.

Nine gravity assist flybys are needed by the spacecraft: one at Earth, two at Venus, and six at Mercury before entering orbit around the planet in 2025. And just on October 15, 2020, the ESA has revealed that the ESA-JAXA BepiColombo mission has already completed the first of two Venus flybys.

“Flybys utilize the gravitational pull of the planets to help alter the speed and direction of the spacecraft, and together with the spacecraft’s solar electric propulsion system, help BepiColombo steer into Mercury orbit against the strong gravitational pull of the Sun,” explained ESA.

Onboard the Mercury Transfer Module, two monitoring cameras were activated during dedicated imaging slots and one of the monitoring cameras have taken a sequence of images as the spacecraft made a close approach of Venus on October 15, 2020.

According to the space agency, the planet dominated the view during the closest approach phase, rising behind the magnetometer boom of the Mercury Planetary Orbiter.

“This sequence of 64 images was captured by Monitoring Camera 2 onboard the Mercury Transfer Module from 40 minutes before until 15 minutes after closest approach of 10 720 km from Venus. The images were taken every 52 seconds. The camera provides black-and-white snapshots in 1024 x 1024 pixel resolution.”

– ESA on a Blog Post, October 15, 2020

The spacecraft will make its first Mercury flyby by October next year. According to the ESA, it is expected to provide the first taste of what will follow once the two science orbiters of the mission have arrived in their dedicated orbits around the planet.

“With each flyby completed we get a step closer to answering some of these perplexing questions about mysterious planet Mercury. Learning more about Mercury will shed light on the history of the entire Solar System, helping us to better understand our own place in space,” said Johannes Benkhoff, ESA’s BepiColombo Project Scientist.

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Source: European Space Agency, European Space Agency| Venus setting, Science Alert