BepiColombo Launch & Cruise Phase Options

[nogal]

ESA announced that BepiColombo has initiated its first thrust arc, which will last 2 months.
The ion thrusters' maximum planed thrust for the entire journey is 250 mN, equivalent to the pull of 250 ants (!)
Fernando

[monty python]

Great news. And a cool selfie.

[nogal]

BepiColombo continues to work well. Here is an excerpt from the latest ESA release:

Following a series of tests conducted in space over the past five months, the ESA-JAXA BepiColombo mission has successfully completed its near-Earth commissioning phase and is now ready for the operations that will take place during the cruise and, eventually, for its scientific investigations at Mercury.

And the release: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Sc...its_long_cruise

Fernando

[MahFL]

BepiColombo continues to work well. Here is an excerpt from the latest ESA release:

And the release: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Sc...its_long_cruise

Fernando

They mentioned some ongoing issues, but did not say what they were.

[bobik]

First Light of PHEBUS on BepiColombo MPO.

[nogal]

On June 17 BepiColombo used its on-board monitoring cameras to take some selfies.Here is the ESA release link
The release includes a link to a cool tool: BepiColombo Attitude Viewer I find it requires a screen larger than that of a mobile phone.
Fernando

[nogal]

An interesting ESA article with some details about Bepi Colombo's thermal environment and challenges:
"How we heat-proofed ESA's Mercury mission"

Fernando