BepiColombo spacecraft enter final stage of Mercury voyage

The BepiColombo mission, carrying European and Japanese spacecraft, separated from its cruiser on Thursday, entering the final stage of its decade-long voyage to Mercury. The spacecraft are now on track to enter orbit around the planet in November. Controllers waited two anxious hours for radio confirmation of the separation, which occurred over 124 million miles away. The linked spacecraft, launched in 2018, still have 2 million miles to travel before reaching Mercury, where they will split in December to study the planet from different altitudes. Named after an Italian mathematician, BepiColombo is only the second mission to explore Mercury after NASA's Messenger. The spacecraft endured nine planetary flybys and extreme heat conditions, with science observations beginning next spring to study Mercury's magnetic field, interior, and surface geology.