British-built spacecraft blasts off on mission to Mercury
A British-built spacecraft is on its way to Mercury, the planet closest to the sun, on a seven-year, five-billion mile journey.
Bepicolombo, which is fitted with Star-trek style “impulse engines”, was blasted into space in the early hours of yesterday from Kourou, French Guiana.
It was carried on top of an Ariane 5, the European Space Agency’s (ESA’S) most powerful rocket.
Following the “escape trajectory” launch, which meant it was immediately freed from the Earth’s gravity, Bepicolombo will head towards Venus. The spacecraft employs advanced electric ion propulsion technology, with engines emitting beams of electrically charged, or “ionised”, xenon gas.
In 2025 it will place two probes – one European, the other Japanese – in orbit around Mercury, the least explored world in the solar system.
Professor Gunther Hasinger, ESA’S director of science, said: “This is truly breathtaking. We have today written history.
“We have sent the most complex stack of spacecraft that ever have been conceived into space, and to a very long journey to an environment which is truly out of the Earth; truly out of this world,” added Mr Hasinger.
The Mercury Transfer Module carrying the orbiters, was built in Stevenage by the Defence and Space division of aerospace company Airbus.