BepiColombo Science Investigations During Cruise and Flybys at the Earth, Venus and Mercury

Valeria Mangano (1) , Melinda Dósa (2) , Markus Fränz (3) , Anna Milillo (1) , Joana S. Oliveira (4) , Yeon Joo Lee (5) , Susan Mckenna-Lawlor (6) , Davide Grassi (1) , Daniel Heyner (7) , Alexander S. Kozyrev (8) , Roberto Peron (1) , Jörn Helbert (9) , Sebastien Besse (10) , Sara de La Fuente (11) , Elsa Montagnon (12) , Joe Zender (4) , Martin Volwerk (13) , Jean-Yves Chaufray (14) , James A. Slavin (15) , Harald Krüger (3) , Alessandro Maturilli (9) , Thomas Cornet (11) , Kazumasa Iwai (16) , Yoshizumi Miyoshi (16) , Marco Lucente (1) , Stefano Massetti (1) , Carl A. Schmidt (17) , Chuanfei Dong (18) , Francesco Quarati (19) , Takayuki Hirai (20) , Ali Varsani (13) , Denis Belyaev (8) , Jun Zhong (21) , Emilia K. J. Kilpua , Bernard V. Jackson (22) , Dusan Odstrcil (23) , Ferdinand Plaschke (13) , Rami Vainio (24) , Riku Järvinen (25, 26) , Stavro Lambrov Ivanovski (27) , Ákos Madár (2) , Géza Erdős (2) , Christina Plainaki (28) , Tommaso Alberti (1) , Sae Aizawa (29) , Johannes Benkhoff (4) , Go Murakami (30) , Eric Quémerais (14) , Harald Hiesinger (31) , Igor G. Mitrofanov (8) , Luciano Iess (32, 33) , Francesco Santoli (1) , Stefano Orsini (1) , Herbert Lichtenegger (13) , Gunther Laky (13) , Stas Barabash (34) , Richard Moissl (10) , Juhani Huovelin (23) , Yasumasa Kasaba (35) , Yoshifumi Saito (30) , Masanori Kobayashi (20) , Wolfgang Baumjohann (13)

1 IAPS - Istituto di Astrofisica e Planetologia Spaziali - INAF
2 Wigner Research Centre for Physics [Budapest]
3 MPS - Max-Planck-Institut für Sonnensystemforschung
4 ESTEC - European Space Research and Technology Centre
5 ZAA - Zentrum für Astronomie und Astrophysik [Berlin]
6 Space Technology Ireland Limited
7 IGEP - Institut für Geophysik und Extraterrestrische Physik [Braunschweig]
8 IKI - Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences
9 DLR Institut für Planetenforschung
10 Operations Department (ESAC)
11 ESAC - European Space Astronomy Centre
12 ESOC - European Space Operations Center
13 IWF - Space Research Institute of Austrian Academy of Sciences
14 HELIOS - LATMOS
15 CLaSP - Department of Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering
16 ISEE - Institute for Space-Earth Environmental Research [Nagoya]
17 BU - Boston University [Boston]
18 PPPL - Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory
19 RST - Department of Radiation Science and Technology [Delft]
20 PERC - Planetary Exploration Research Center [Chiba]
21 IGG - Institute of Geology and Geophysics [Beijing]
22 CASS - Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences [La Jolla]
23 Department of Physics [Helsinki]
24 Department of Physics and Astronomy [Turku]
25 FMI - Finnish Meteorological Institute
26 Department of Electronics and Nanoengineering [Espoo]
27 OAT - INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Trieste
28 NKUA - National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
29 IRAP - Institut de recherche en astrophysique et planétologie
30 ISAS - Institute of Space and Astronautical Science
31 Institut für Planetologie [Münster]
32 UNIROMA - Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza" = Sapienza University [Rome]
33 DIMA - Dipartimento di Ingegneria Meccanica e Aerospaziale [Roma La Sapienza]
34 IRF - Swedish Institute of Space Physics [Uppsala]
35 PPARC - Planetary Plasma and Atmospheric Research Center [Sendai]

The dual spacecraft mission BepiColombo is the first joint mission between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) to explore the planet Mercury. BepiColombo was launched from Kourou (French Guiana) on October 20th, 2018, in its packed configuration including two spacecraft, a transfer module, and a sunshield. BepiColombo cruise trajectory is a long journey into the inner heliosphere, and it includes one flyby of the Earth (in April 2020), two of Venus (in October 2020 and August 2021), and six of Mercury (starting from 2021), before orbit insertion in December 2025. A big part of the mission instruments will be fully operational during the mission cruise phase, allowing unprecedented investigation of the different environments that will encounter during the 7-years long cruise. The present paper reviews all the planetary flybys and some interesting cruise configurations. Additional scientific research that will emerge in the coming years is also discussed, including the instruments that can contribute.

Domains: Sciences of the Universe [physics]

Valeria Mangano, Melinda Dósa, Markus Fränz, Anna Milillo, Joana S. Oliveira, et al.. BepiColombo Science Investigations During Cruise and Flybys at the Earth, Venus and Mercury. Space Science Reviews, 2021, 217, pp.23. ⟨10.1007/s11214-021-00797-9⟩. ⟨insu-03139759⟩