The European Space Agency (ESA) is having to delay the arrival of its BepiColombo mission to Mercury after the twin probes suffered a glitch that prevented it from operating at full power. The spacecraft will have to perform an unexpected maneuver as a result, delaying its arrival at Mercury by nearly a year.
BepiColombo will follow a different trajectory on its way to Mercury, delaying the spacecraft’s insertion into orbit around the innermost planet from December 2025 to November 2026, ESA announced. The spacecraft had been on a journey towards Mercury for over five years before it experienced an issue with its propulsion system, resulting in less power available for the remainder of its trip. To help BepiColombo reach its destination, ESA engineers developed a clever workaround that will allow the spacecraft to use lower thrust during its cruise phase.
BepiColombo launched in October 2018 as a joint mission between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), each providing an orbiter to explore Mercury’s surface and interior, along with the planet’s magnetic field. ESA’s Mercury Planet Orbiter (MPO) and JAXA’s Mercury Magnetosphere Orbiter (MMO) launched together on a single spacecraft, and each are designed to enter its respective orbit around Mercury.
The mission had been scheduled for a maneuver on April 26, but the spacecraft’s Transfer Module, responsible for generating thrust, failed to deliver enough electrical power to the thrusters. The team behind the mission identified unexpected electric currents between BepiColombo’s solar array and the unit responsible for extracting power and distributing it to the rest of the spacecraft, according to ESA. Following a months-long investigation, the mission team concluded that the spacecraft’s electrical thrusters would remain at lower levels, preventing it from entering Mercury’s orbit in 2025.
Instead, BepiColombo will follow a new trajectory, taking it closer to Mercury’s surface than previously planned. The spacecraft is scheduled for a flyby of Mercury on Thursday to reduce its speed and change its direction before entering the planet’s orbit in 2026. During the upcoming flyby, BepiColombo will come around 56 miles (35 kilometers) closer to Mercury than the mission’s original plan.
This will also be the first time BepiColombo flies over Mercury’s poles, helping to adjust the spacecraft’s trajectory to match the orbit of the planet (which is more inclined than Earth’s). The spacecraft is also due to snap some epic shots of Mercury’s south pole, which are expected on Thursday.
“It’s so exciting that BepiColombo can boost our understanding and knowledge of Mercury during these brief flybys, despite being in ‘stacked’ cruise configuration,” Johannes Benkhoff, BepiColombo project scientist, said in a statement. “We get to fly our world-class science laboratory through diverse and unexplored parts of Mercury’s environment that we won’t have access to once in orbit, while also getting a head start on preparations to make sure we will transition into the main science mission as quickly and smoothly as possible.”
The spacecraft will perform nine gravity assist maneuvers in total: one around Earth, two around Venus, and six around Mercury. The mission carried out its first flyby of Mercury in October 2021 and returned gorgeous close-up images of the solar system’s smallest planet.
BepiColombo is only the third spacecraft to visit Mercury, the least explored rocky planet of the solar system, according to ESA. Mercury is especially tricky to reach due to the powerful gravitational pull of the Sun, which accelerates the spacecraft towards it. The planet is wrapped in mystery, which the mission hopes to unravel once it reaches Mercury and starts to gather clues about its composition, magnetic field, and how it evolved over time.
More: Mercury Probe Flies Through Charged Particle Rain That Triggers the Planet’s Auroras
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