Radiator fin inspection

Engineers inspect individual radiator fins that will be attached to the BepiColombo Mercury Planetary Orbiter.

The 3.7 m wide radiator is specially designed to reflect heat directionally, thus allowing the spacecraft to fly at low altitude over the hot surface of the planet. Heat generated by spacecraft subsystems and payload components, as well as heat coming from the Sun and Mercury and ‘leaking’ through the thermal blankets into the spacecraft, will be carried away to the radiator by heat pipes.