- This Friday, April 10, the BepiColombo probe, which left in 2018 for Mercury, will pass very close to Earth.
- This flash passage will allow him to carry out a gravitational assistance maneuver.
- The first blow of a slingshot game which will allow it to travel 8.5 billion kilometers while drawing a maximum of free energy.
We must not see in this salvation, very distanced anyway, of irony for confined Earthlings. The BepiColombo probe, the result of cooperation between the Japanese and the European Space Agency (ESA), left the floor of the cows in 2018 powered by an Ariane 5 rocket, starting an 8.5 billion km journey towards Mercury, the smallest and least explored of the planets in our solar system. But here it is, this Friday April 10 at dawn. Visible with a simple telescope in the countries of southern Europe, it will pass within 13,000 kilometers, "therefore closer than the navigation satellites", specifies Airbus Defense & Space, which built the probe.
On April 10, #BepiColombo will fly over Earth during the first of a series of 9 gravitational assistance maneuvers. 2 flyovers of Venus and 6 flyovers of Mercury are also planned before insertion into orbit ... #BepiColomboEarthFlyby
📽️👇👉https: //t.co/mKcRe6uzpu pic.twitter.com/jNAvkmxwQJ
So why this near return to square one? A technical problem? "Gravitational assistance," says ESA. For the record, the maneuver is the same as that carried out, under the beard of the laying of Nasa, by the crew of the Ares III mission to recover without recharging the batteries the beautiful Matt Damon left Alone on Mars .
Okay, BepiColombo has no one to save anywhere. If not its precious energy reserves, its ion-propelled fuel, which it will need to operate its 16 scientific instruments once it is operational around Mercury.
Planetary pool game
It will therefore use earth gravity in ecological mode, completely free orbital energy, avoiding excessive use of its own resources. This, not only to brake - the maneuver will allow him to slow down by five kilometers per second - but also to change his trajectory and set course for the internal school system. More precisely on Venus, where the planetary billiard game of BepiColombo, punctuated by accelerations, braking and switching, will continue.
The probe will use the Star of the Shepherd in gravitational assistance mode twice, in October 2020 and then in August 2021. At the end of the journey, it will vampirize six times the orbital energy of Mercury before gently reaching its orbit operational and to start its work. His arrival is scheduled for December 5, 2025. In the meantime, this little hello will allow the ground teams to check the instruments.
Science
Why does the planet Mercury still intrigue researchers?
Science
Parker solar probe "skims" the Sun at 393,000 km / h, a double record
- Space
- Airbus
- Science
- Research
- Space conquest