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Space
Space
Science
Andrew Jones

Thruster issues delay BepiColombo probe's Mercury arrival until November 2026

Mercury ESA Jaxa Venus
A cube-shaped spacecraft with two rectangular solar panels in orbit high above a rocky, crater-covered planet.

The joint European-Japanese BepiColombo spacecraft is set for a Mercury flyby late on Wednesday (Sept. 4), but thruster issues mean the probe faces a lengthy delay before entering orbit around the solar system's innermost planet.

BepiColombo launched in 2018 on an Ariane 5 rocket to seek out answers to mysteries surrounding Mercury. Its circuitous route to entering orbit around Mercury involves one Earth flyby, a pair of Venus flybys and six more around Mercury itself. The Sept. 4 flyby will be BepiColombo's fourth of Mercury to date. 

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