The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
Find out more about space activities in our 23 Member States, and understand how ESA works together with their national agencies, institutions and organisations.
Exploring our Solar System and unlocking the secrets of the Universe
Go to topicProtecting life and infrastructure on Earth and in orbit
Go to topicUsing space to benefit citizens and meet future challenges on Earth
Go to topicMaking space accessible and developing the technologies for the future
Go to topicThank you for liking
You have already liked this page, you can only like it once!
The BepiColombo team, led by Elsa Montagnon, seen in the main control room at ESA's ESOC mission control centre during simulation training for ESA's first mission to Mercury.
BepiColombo will set off in 2018 on a journey to the smallest and least-explored terrestrial planet in our Solar System, and is due to arrive in late 2025.
Achieving orbit around Mercury is a challenge because of its proximity to the Sun, whose massive gravitational influence attracts spacecraft to it like water down a plughole.
The mission team will oversee a series of nine flybys around Earth, Venus then Mercury itself to slow BepiColombo down so it can be captured by the innermost planet. ESA interplanetary missions normally perform flybys to add speed; BepiColombo marks the first time that flybys are used to a slow a spacecraft.