BepiColombo continues its approach to Mercury !
This world-class scientific mission is led by the European Space Agency (ESA), in close collaboration with JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency).
BepiColombo will be the first mission to simultaneously place two spacecraft into orbit around Mercury: ESA’s Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and JAXA’s Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (Mio).
After an eight-year journey through the inner Solar System, the BepiColombo mission is embarking on a new major phase of its adventure around Mercury.
In recent months, the BepiColombo mission has reached several important milestones. Following its sixth gravity assist at Mercury on January 8, 2025—a step that allowed it to gradually adjust its trajectory prior to entering orbit around the planet—another milestone was reached in September 2026 with the deployment of the Mercury Transfer Module (MTM).
Next steps :
In November 2026, the two probes, MPO and Mio, will be inserted into orbit around Mercury using MPO’s engines.
The operational start-up of the two probes, MPO and Mio, in their Mercury orbits is then scheduled for March 2027, paving the way for the next stages of the scientific mission.
And what about us in all of this?
This mission also represents a great success for EREMS and for the teams that contributed to the project.
Our collaboration with LATMOS enabled us to contribute to the development of the Data Processing Unit (DPU) as well as the high-voltage power supplies for the PHEBUS instrument, an ultraviolet spectrometer aboard the European MPO module.
PHEBUS plays a vital role in studying Mercury’s atmosphere and exosphere. The data collected by this instrument will deepen our understanding of this still largely unknown planet and its particularly complex environment.
This is a fine illustration of the continuity of our expertise and our teams’ commitment to large-scale scientific and technological projects.
To learn more :
You can find the DPU fact sheet on our website to learn more about the equipment our teams helped develop.
More information :
BepiColombo | CNES