BepiColombo's thrusters fire

On 17 December 2018, BepiColombo's mission team at ESOC fired the spacecraft's ion thrusters - the first of 22 routine thruster burns for the interplanetary explorer.

They watched graphs such as this one reveal how the spacecraft was gaining momentum, as two of its thrusters went from the initial thrust level of 75 millinewtons (mN) up to 108 mN each.