BepiColombo MPO inside Phenix

The Mercury Planetary Orbiter, part of ESA's BepiColombo mission to Mercury, placed in the Phenix thermal vacuum facility on 17 January 2012 in preparation for its 'bake-out'. After 23 days of sustained heating to remove potential contaminants the test was completed and the chamber reopened on 14 February 2013. A new test facility called Phenix hosted the bake-out, a 4.5 m-diameter stainless steel vacuum chamber 11.8 m long, with an inner box called the ‘thermal tent’ whose six copper walls can be heated up to 100°C or cooled via piped liquid nitrogen down to –190°C, all independent from each other.