The #BepiColombo spacecraft ‘stack’ is complete. Our Mercury Transfer Module sits at the bottom, its two 15 m-long solar arrays folded for launch. It will use a combination of solar electric propulsion, chemical propulsion, and nine gravity assist flybys over seven years to deliver the two science orbiters that sit above, to Mercury.

SMART-1's crash site
This greyscale, mottled image shows a patch of the Moon’s surface, and features an intriguing shape towards the top of the frame. This was actually made by a spacecraft – it marks the final resting place of ESA’s SMART-1 (Small Missions for Advanced Research in Technology-1).
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/SMART-1

Launched in 2003, SMART-1 was a Moon-orbiting probe that observed our cosmic companion for roughly three years. On 3 September 2006 the mission’s operations came to an end and the spacecraft was sent down to deliberately crash into the Moon, bouncing and grazing across the lunar surface at a speed of two kilometres per second and achieving Europe’s first lunar touchdown.

After the impact, a bright flash was seen at the boundary between lunar day and night by the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope in Hawaii. However, as no other spacecraft were currently in orbit at the time to watch the event unfurl, it was not possible to pinpoint exactly where SMART-1 crashed. Scientists used orbit tracking, Earth-based simulations, and observations of the bright impact flash to estimate the location of the landing site, but the mission’s precise resting place remained unknown for over a decade.
https://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/SMART-1/SMART-1_impact_flash_and_debris_crash_scene_investigation

Last year, high-resolution images from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) revealed the whereabouts of SMART-1 – as shown here. The spacecraft carved out a four-metre-wide and 20-metre-long gouge as it crash-landed; it cut across a small crater and sent lunar soil flying outwards from its skidding, ricocheting path, creating the brighter patches of material seen either side of the crater, before coming to a halt at 34.262° south, 46.193° west.

Alongside searching for water ice on the Moon and observing and photographing our nearest celestial neighbour, SMART-1 played a key role in testing ion propulsion – an efficient type of propulsion that uses electrical energy to propel a spacecraft through space.
https://www.esa.int/Education/Ion_motors

SMART-1 was ESA’s first mission to travel to deep space using this type of propulsion. Ion propulsion will also be used on the joint ESA-JAXA BepiColombo mission when it launches in October of this year towards Mercury.
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/BepiColombo_overview2

The field of view in the image is 50 metres wide (north is up), with solar illumination coming from the west. SMART-1 touched down from north to south.


Copyright: P. Stooke/B. Foing et al 2017/ NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University


More about SMART-1
https://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/SMART-1/SMART-1_impact_flash_and_debris_crash_scene_investigation

More about ESA’s lunar exploration
https://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Human_Spaceflight/Exploration





#SMART #ESA #NASA #JPL #JAXA #BepiColombo #Space #DeepSpace #SpaceMissions #SpaceCraft #TheMoon #Telescopes #LRO #LunarCraters

The two science orbiters of the joint +European Space Agency, ESA - +JAXA | 宇宙航空研究開発機構 #BepiColombo mission are connected in their launch configuration and the European science orbiter and transport module have been given the go-ahead to be loaded with propellants.

I..

BepiColombo to target mid-October launch
Europe’s first mission to Mercury will target the early morning of 19 October for launch, Arianespace and ESA announced today.

The joint ESA-JAXA BepiColombo mission will launch on an Ariane 5 from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, setting a trio of spacecraft on course for Mercury. The spacecraft will travel together: a transfer module will carry the two science orbiters – the ESA Mercury Planetary Orbiter and the JAXA Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter – using a combination of solar power and electric propulsion, and nine gravity-assist flybys of Earth, Venus and Mercury.

Lift-off is anticipated for around 01:45 GMT (03:45 CEST), equivalent to 18 October 22:45 in local time (GFT).

The date chosen represents the first option to launch, taking into account some additional, unplanned testing performed in Kourou. The launch window remains open until 29 November.

“We have had a great start to our launch campaign in Kourou, and are on track for launch in less than ninety days,” says ESA’s BepiColombo project manager Ulrich Reininghaus.

"We have an incredibly packed schedule, but it is great to see our spacecraft building up together for the final time.”

Since arriving at the Spaceport in May, many essential preparations have been completed. For example, the spacecraft have been fitted with their protective high-temperature blankets, xenon and nitrogen tanks have been checked, loaded and pressurised, and the deployment tests and final installations of the solar arrays are underway.

Simulations for key operations have also started at ESA’s operations centre in Darmstadt, Germany. Personnel are also practicing non-routine events to be prepared for all eventualities on the journey to Mercury.

The composite spacecraft ‘stack’ will make the first flyby of Mercury just three years after launch. A number of scientific instruments will be active during the planetary flybys, with the transfer module’s ‘webcams’ offering the potential to capture simple images before the main science camera is operational in Mercury orbit.

Once separated into their final orbits, the two scientific craft will make complementary measurements of the innermost planet and its environment, from its deep interior to its interaction with the solar wind, to provide the best understanding of Mercury to date. The results will provide insight into how the innermost planet of a solar system forms and evolves close to its parent star.


Credit: ESA


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#BepiColombo #ESA #JAXA #Mercury #Space #SolarSystem #MercuryPlanetaryOrbiter #SpaceScience #MercuryMagnetosphericOrbiter #BepiColomboProject #Stars #Planets #PlanetaryFlybys #Orbits #MercuryOrbit #PlanetsOrbits #SpaceObservations

BepiColombo mission: The long voyage to #Mercury - European-Japanese mission to investigate the smallest planet in the Solar System

The +European Space Agency, ESA / +JAXA | 宇宙航空研究開発機構 #BepiColombo mission is scheduled to take off from the European spaceport in French Guiana at 03:45 CEST on 20 October 2018 (22:45 on 19 October local time), on board an Ariane 5 launch vehicle.

Of the 16 #instruments on board the two spacecraft, three were primarily developed in #Germany: BELA, MPO-MAG and MERTIS.

Full article: https://www.dlr.de/dlr/en/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-10081/151_read-30312/year-all/#/gallery/32393