@europeanspaceagency
ESA8 years. 9.9 billion km. 9 flybys. One destination: Mercury 🛰️✨ Since launching in 2018, ESA and JAXA's BepiColombo mission has been taking the long route to Mercury, using gravity assists from Earth, Venus and Mercury itself to gradually align with the planet's orbit. This video brings together footage from the spacecraft's monitoring cameras, showing its complete journey so far: one flyby of Earth, two of Venus and six of Mercury. From September 2026, BepiColombo begins the final stage of its arrival, with its two science orbiters preparing to enter orbit around the Solar System's smallest and least explored planet. Watch 8 years of deep-space travel in just 3 minutes. 📹 ESA/BepiColombo/MTM #ESA #BepiColombo #Mercury
On the profile · Sept 9, 12:08