BepiColombo insulation blanket

The hand-sewn thermal blanket on ESA’s Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO), one of the two science spacecraft of the ESA-JAXA BepiColombo mission, at Europe's Spaceport during launch preparations.

BepiColombo is Europe's first mission to Mercury, due to launch this year on a journey to the smallest and least explored terrestrial planet in the inner Solar System. When it arrives at Mercury in late 2025, it will endure temperatures in excess of 350 °C.