November 4, 2025
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Breaking News
  • [ November 1, 2025 ] Commercial space station demo, data center precursor launch on SpaceX Bandwagon-4 mission Falcon 9
  • [ October 31, 2025 ] SpaceX launches 100th Starlink flight of 2025 Falcon 9
  • [ October 30, 2025 ] Former NASA Administrators urge space agency to rethink plans for Artemis Moon lander News
  • [ October 28, 2025 ] SpaceX launches 29 Starlink satellites on Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Falcon 9
  • [ October 28, 2025 ] Blue Origin details lunar exploration progress amid Artemis 3 contract shakeup Mission Reports

Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter

Mission Reports

Mercury-bound spacecraft gets an assist from Venus

October 15, 2020 Stephen Clark

The European-Japanese BepiColombo spacecraft flew by Venus late Wednesday, using the planet’s gravity to help redirect the probe toward its ultimate destination of Mercury.

Mission Reports

BepiColombo flies by Earth, completing first leg of journey to Mercury

April 10, 2020 Stephen Clark

Working with a reduced staff due to coronavirus-related restrictions, European Space Agency flight controllers monitored the BepiColombo spacecraft during a flyby of Earth on Friday, a maneuver that used our planet’s gravity to steer the mission on a course toward Mercury.

Mission Reports

Lean team readies ESA’s Mercury-bound BepiColombo for planetary flyby

March 30, 2020 Stephen Clark

One job deemed essential by the European Space Agency coronavirus pandemic involves shepherding the BepiColombo spacecraft through a high-speed flyby of planet Earth next month, an immovable event on the $1.8 billion mission’s seven-year journey to Mercury.

Ariane 5

Arianespace aims for busy second half of 2018

July 3, 2018 Stephen Clark

Europe’s first mission to Mercury, a quartet of Galileo navigation spacecraft, the world’s first global winds observatory, and a new European weather satellite have arrived at an equatorial launch base in French Guiana in preparation for launches in the coming months.

News

BepiColombo Mercury mission tested for journey into ‘pizza oven’

July 10, 2017 Stephen Clark

Three spacecraft built in Europe and Japan have completed their final joint tests to ensure they are ready for departure to Mercury on an Ariane 5 rocket late next year on the nearly $1.9 billion BepiColombo mission to survey the solar system’s innermost planet.

News Headlines

  • Commercial space station demo, data center precursor launch on SpaceX Bandwagon-4 mission
    November 1, 2025
  • SpaceX launches 100th Starlink flight of 2025
    October 31, 2025
  • Former NASA Administrators urge space agency to rethink plans for Artemis Moon lander
    October 30, 2025
  • SpaceX launches 29 Starlink satellites on Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral
    October 28, 2025
  • Blue Origin details lunar exploration progress amid Artemis 3 contract shakeup
    October 28, 2025
  • Astrobotic delays Griffin-1 Moon mission to NET July 2026
    October 28, 2025
  • SpaceX breaks its California pad turnaround record with sunset Starlink launch
    October 26, 2025
  • SpaceX marks 5th anniversary of first Starlink customer with Sunday satellite launch
    October 25, 2025
  • SpaceX surpasses 2024 orbital launch record with Saturday Starlink mission
    October 24, 2025
  • Airbus, Leonardo and Thales agree to form new European company
    October 24, 2025
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