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Investigating Mercury's Environment with the Two-Spacecraft BepiColombo Mission
André, N.; Kallio, E.; Barabash, S. +76 more
The ESA-JAXA BepiColombo mission will provide simultaneous measurements from two spacecraft, offering an unprecedented opportunity to investigate magnetospheric and exospheric dynamics at Mercury as well as their interactions with the solar wind, radiation, and interplanetary dust. Many scientific instruments onboard the two spacecraft will be com…
SIMBIO-SYS: Scientific Cameras and Spectrometer for the BepiColombo Mission
Langevin, Y.; Poulet, F.; Jorda, L. +93 more
The SIMBIO-SYS (Spectrometer and Imaging for MPO BepiColombo Integrated Observatory SYStem) is a complex instrument suite part of the scientific payload of the Mercury Planetary Orbiter for the BepiColombo mission, the last of the cornerstone missions of the European Space Agency (ESA) Horizon + science program.
Rationale for BepiColombo Studies of Mercury's Surface and Composition
Muinonen, Karri; Wurz, Peter; Massironi, Matteo +63 more
BepiColombo has a larger and in many ways more capable suite of instruments relevant for determination of the topographic, physical, chemical and mineralogical properties of Mercury's surface than the suite carried by NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft. Moreover, BepiColombo's data rate is substantially higher. This equips it to confirm, elaborate upon, …
Studying the Composition and Mineralogy of the Hermean Surface with the Mercury Radiometer and Thermal Infrared Spectrometer (MERTIS) for the BepiColombo Mission: An Update
Hiesinger, H.; Maturilli, A.; Helbert, J. +10 more
Launched onboard the BepiColombo Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) in October 2018, the Mercury Radiometer and Thermal Infrared Spectrometer (MERTIS) is on its way to planet Mercury. MERTIS consists of a push-broom IR-spectrometer (TIS) and a radiometer (TIR), which operate in the wavelength regions of 7-14 µm and 7-40 µm, respectively. …
The BepiColombo Mercury Imaging X-Ray Spectrometer: Science Goals, Instrument Performance and Operations
Bunce, Emma J.; Muinonen, Karri; Kallio, Esa +68 more
The Mercury Imaging X-ray Spectrometer is a highly novel instrument that is designed to map Mercury's elemental composition from orbit at two angular resolutions. By observing the fluorescence X-rays generated when solar-coronal X-rays and charged particles interact with the surface regolith, MIXS will be able to measure the atomic composition of …
Mio—First Comprehensive Exploration of Mercury's Space Environment: Mission Overview
Barabash, Stas; Korablev, Oleg; Moncuquet, Michel +17 more
Mercury has a unique and complex space environment with its weak global magnetic field, intense solar wind, tenuous exosphere, and magnetospheric plasma particles. This complex system makes Mercury an excellent science target to understand effects of the solar wind to planetary environments. In addition, investigating Mercury's dynamic magnetosphe…
PHEBUS on Bepi-Colombo: Post-launch Update and Instrument Performance
Korablev, Oleg; Belyaev, Denis; Chaufray, Jean-Yves +14 more
The Bepi-Colombo mission was launched in October 2018, headed for Mercury. This mission is a collaboration between Europe and Japan. It is dedicated to the study of Mercury and its environment. It will be inserted into Mercury orbit in December 2025 after a 7-year long cruise. Probing of Hermean Exosphere By Ultraviolet Spectroscopy (PHEBUS) is an…
Space weathering by simulated micrometeorite bombardment on natural olivine and pyroxene: A coordinated IR and TEM study
Hiesinger, Harald; Helbert, Jörn; Weber, Iris +9 more
We studied space-weathering effects caused by micrometeorite bombardment simulated by pulsed intense infrared laser, generating ∼15 mJ per pulse in high vacuum. For our investigation, we selected a natural olivine (San Carlos olivine (Fo91)) and a natural pyroxene (Bamble orthopyroxene (En87)) as important rock forming minera…
Plasma Wave Investigation (PWI) Aboard BepiColombo Mio on the Trip to the First Measurement of Electric Fields, Electromagnetic Waves, and Radio Waves Around Mercury
Karlsson, Tomas; Moncuquet, Michel; Issautier, Karine +14 more
The Plasma Wave Investigation (PWI) aboard the BepiColombo Mio (Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter, MMO) will enable the first observations of electric fields, plasma waves, and radio waves in and around the Hermean magnetosphere and exosphere. The PWI has two sets of receivers (EWO with AM2P, SORBET) connected to two electric field sensors…
ISA, a High Sensitivity Accelerometer in the Interplanetary Space
Lucente, Marco; Lefevre, Carlo; Fiorenza, Emiliano +6 more
ISA (Italian Spring Accelerometer) is a high sensitivity accelerometer flying, as scientific payload, on-board one of the two spacecraft (the Mercury Planetary Orbiter) of BepiColombo, the first ESA mission to Mercury. The first commissioning phase (performed in the period November 2018 - August 2019) allowed to verify the functionality of the ins…