Yesterday morning, the Baby Probe approached, for the last time, from Earth, before continuing its journey to Mercury, the smallest planet of the solar system.
The joint European-Japanese Mercury mission headed to Earth at a speed of about 30 kilometers per second, in an experiment to test its brakes. The probe's progress was closely monitored from the European Space Agency's operations center in the German city of Darmstadt, as it approached its nearest point to the Earth some 12,700 km away.
The mission, launched in October 2018, is the first European Space Agency mission to Mercury, the closest planet to the sun. The probe carries two orbital spacecraft to explore Mercury's magnetic field, surface and solar wind as soon as the probe enters the planet's orbit.
The probe crossed the critical stage after reaching the nearest point from the earth, where it walked in the shadow of the earth without sunlight reaching it for 34 minutes, relying on its batteries.
"The probe flew in the shadow of our planet and did not provide direct sunlight for the first time since its launch (in October 2018)," said the director of the probe's control team, Elsa Montagnon.
Just before his closest approach to Earth, the probe took its last pictures of the Earth. "The pictures show the Earth from space, at one of the most difficult times in modern human history," a European Space Agency statement said.
The probe took its last image of Earth at one of the most difficult times in modern human history.
- The European Space Agency's first mission launched in October 2018 to planet Mercury.