Pair of spacecraft draw closer to Mercury after 10 year voyage

Mercury's north pole on 8 January 2026 during the 6th and final gravity assist at the planet

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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Two Mercury-bound spacecraft left their mother ship behind on Thursday and headed down the home stretch of their nearly decade-long voyage to the solar system’s smallest and closest-to-the-sun planet.

The linked European and Japanese spacecraft separated as planned from their cruiser, but controllers had to wait two anxious hours to receive confirmation via radio signals. The crucial operation was broadcast from the European Space Agency’s control center in Germany, more than 124 million miles away.

“It’s a brilliant moment,” said lead project scientist Geraint Jones.

If all goes well, the conjoined spacecraft known as BepiColombo will enter orbit around Mercury in November and split from each other in December to map and study the entire planet from different altitudes. As of Thursday, the spacecraft still had 2 million miles to go before reaching its destination.

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BepiColombo already has traveled more than 6 billion miles (10 billion kilometers) on its roundabout route, according to Martinez.

It needed nine planetary flybys to reduce its energy enough to be caught in Mercury’s orbit. The last flyby, in January 2025, yielded stunning photos of Mercury’s impact craters and volcanic plains.

Beginning next spring, a slew of science instruments on the European and Japanese spacecraft will study the magnetic field that envelops Mercury, the planet’s dense interior, and the geologic processes at the surface, including the hollows, or depressions, that scientists believe are being eaten away by minerals vaporizing from rocks.

It’s a strange world of contrasts. On a planet where the temperature can top 800 degrees Fahrenheit (427 degrees Celsius), the poles are frigid with deep, permanently shadowed craters packed with ice.

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ETA: the first mission

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The first mission to orbit Mercury was NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft, which successfully entered orbit on March 18, 2011.
Mission TimelineLaunch Date: August 3, 2004
Journey Length: Six and a half years
Flybys: Executed flybys of Earth, Venus, and Mercury to slow down against the Sun's gravityOrbit
Date: March 18, 2011
End of Mission: April 30, 2015 (after running out of propellant, it impacted Mercury's surface)

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