BepiColombo Status Options

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

Excerpt from a News article by Jenny Hogan in the December 1, 2005, issue of Nature:

"The [funding] situation has led to speculation that BepiColombo, a mission destined for a 2013 launch to Mercury, might be cancelled. 'That is the big danger painted in the sky,' says Karl-Heinz Glassmeier, principal investigator on one of the instruments proposed for the spacecraft.

"Nerves were set jangling about the project, which also involves the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, after it was postponed because the initial design was too heavy. That problem seems to have been solved, but officials say the estimated cost of the mission, at 600 million [euros] to 650 million [euros], is still more than 100 million [euros] above target."

Reference:

Europe's cash crisis puts space plans under threat
Jenny Hogan
Nature 438, 542-543 (2005)
doi:10.1038/438542a
Full Text

[Explorer1]

Eight flybys! Now that's a record for sure!
Still a pity about the cancelled lander, but you can't have everything I suppose. Looks like a far lower orbit than even MESSENGER can manage, so not as much a repeat as I thought before...