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The Economic Times
The Economic Times
National

8 years, 10 billion km, one shot: The spacecraft racing toward Mercury faces its trickiest hour yet

A spacecraft carrying European and Japanese probes will complete an eight-year journey to arrive at Mercury on Thursday, though it still faces high-risk manoeuvres to study the Sun-scorched planet, AFP reported.

The BepiColombo mission, which set off from Earth in 2018 on a winding path to study the smallest and least understood planet in the Solar System, must now begin a months-long arrival phase that the European Space Agency (ESA) has described as one of the most operationally challenging planetary arrival sequences ever attempted.

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