The ESA – BEPICOLOMBO spaceprobe will fly alongside the planet Mercury

On Saturday, October 2, 2021 at 1:34AM CET, after three years of flight the BepiColombo spaceprobe approached the planet Mercury and flew around it at a distance of 200 kilometers. It was the first of a series of six scheduled flights. Subsequently, the probe will be captured in Mercury’s orbit in December 2025 and will focus on studying the planet itself. The Slovak Academy of Sciences and slovak technology companies also contributed to the development and construction of the probe’s scientific instrumentation.

The scientific load of the probe also includes a complex particle apparatus SERENA (Search for Exospheric Refilling and Emitted Natural Abundances) and its so-called ion camera PICAM (Planetary Ion CAMera). Institute of Experimental Physics of the Slovak Academy of Sciences was one of the contributors to its construction.

“PICAM is a mass spectrometer that will analyze atoms released, ionized and escaping into space from the surface of Mercury. It happens under the influence of intense sunlight to which the planet is exposed. The analysis of these escaping atoms will bring valuable knowledge about the surface composition of the planet,” explains one of the designers of the spectrometer Ján Baláž from the Institute of Experimental Physics of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Košice.

He participated in the preparation of the mission in cooperation with Irish and Austrian scientific institutions, and the important mechanical parts of the PICAM camera were manufactured by the Slovak technological company Q-Products. During Saturday’s flight, practically all scientific instruments were be activated, including the SERENA complex.

The great technological challenge of the mission is the reliable work of scientific apparatus in a temperature- and radiation-inhospitable environment, as the sunlight is up to ten times more intense at Mercury than on Earth.

BepiColombo spacec probe was launched to Mercury in October 2018. It is named in honor of Italian astronomer Giuseppe ‘Bepi’ Colombo and its goal is to significantly expand knowledge about the formation of the solar system and the evolution of planets near the parent star.

Author: Katarína Gáliková
Text and photo originally published HERE