BeppiColombo’s first images of Mercury
This past weekend the European/Japanese duel-orbiter mission made its first flyby of Mercury, taking its first images of that planet.
The photo to the right is one example, cropped and reduced slightly to post here. It was taken by the spacecraft’s monitoring cameras, designed for engineering purposes, which means the resolution is not very high and the camera is positioned so that parts of the spacecraft were visible in each shot. For example, the white strut in the lower right is the spacecraft’s magnetometer boom, which also was used to gather data during the flyby.
Still, the photos demonstrated that the spacecraft is pointing correctly and on course. It will complete five more Mercury fly-bys before going into orbit in 2025.
The next flyby will occur in June ’22.
This past weekend the European/Japanese duel-orbiter mission made its first flyby of Mercury, taking its first images of that planet.
The photo to the right is one example, cropped and reduced slightly to post here. It was taken by the spacecraft’s monitoring cameras, designed for engineering purposes, which means the resolution is not very high and the camera is positioned so that parts of the spacecraft were visible in each shot. For example, the white strut in the lower right is the spacecraft’s magnetometer boom, which also was used to gather data during the flyby.
Still, the photos demonstrated that the spacecraft is pointing correctly and on course. It will complete five more Mercury fly-bys before going into orbit in 2025.
The next flyby will occur in June ’22.