The BepiColombo Mission to Explore Planet Mercury

This book reviews the scientific objectives and the instrumentation of the space mission BepiColombo. BepiColombo is a joint mission between ESA and JAXA, to perform a comprehensive exploration of Mercury. Launched in October 2018, the spacecraft is now en route to Mercury and is scheduled to begin orbiting in 2026. Two orbiters have been sent to Mercury and will be put into dedicated, polar orbits around the planet. The Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO, nicknamed Mio after launch) will provide the information needed to understand the planet and its environment. The scientific objectives focus on a global characterization of Mercury through the investigation of its interior, surface, exosphere, and magnetosphere. In addition, instrumentation onboard BepiColombo will also be used to test Einstein’s theory of general relativity. The book contains a comprehensive description of the mission design and its history, it describes in detail the state-of the-art instruments and their individual scientific objectives. However, the fascination of the BepiColombo mission is also the fact, that two spacecraft are operating simulatonsly in orbits around Mercury. The interplay of the two spacecraft and its instruments and its benefits for gaining knowledge about this “mysterious’ planet Mercury is also dealt within a few overview artictes on the expected science return. Previously published in Space Science Reviews in the Topical Collection “The BepiColombo mission to Mercury"