Japan-Europe Mercury Probes' Arrival Postponed by 1 Year

Tokyo, Sept. 3 (Jiji Press)--The arrival time of two spacecraft traveling to Mercury under a Japan-Europe joint exploration mission will be delayed to November 2026 from December 2025, the Japanese and European space agencies have said.

The new schedule was decided after a malfunction of the power supply system for the spacecraft, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, and the European Space Agency said.

The mission, named BepiColombo, is aimed at studying in detail the environment of Mercury, the innermost planet in the solar system, including its magnetic field and atmosphere.

In October 2018, JAXA's Mio and ESA's MPO probes, designed to observe mainly magnetic fields and examine the surface of Mercury, respectively, were launched joined together.

In May this year, it turned out that a malfunction in the power supply system was preventing full ion engine operations. The space agencies re-examined their trajectory plan until the arrival and changed the timetable of putting them into orbit around Mercury. The schedule change will have no impact on the operations of Mio and MPO, according to the agencies.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]