'It really shows just how dynamic Mercury's space environment is.' When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. When the BepiColombo Mercury ...

It was seven years ago when a planetary mission called BepiColombo departed our world. A joint effort of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the ...

This is one of a series of images taken by the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission on 8 January 2025 as the spacecraft sped by for its sixth and final gravity assist manoeuvre at the planet. Flying over ...

VANDENBERG SPACE FORCE BASE, CA – November 28, 2025 – Proteus Space announced the successful launch and first contact of MERCURY ONE, its inaugural four-payload ESPA class spacecraft.

Part 2 explores the dramatically different approaches to the launch systems, and the surprising similarities in the factors ...

Despite being relatively nearby, very few space probes have visited the solar system's innermost planet. Any spacecraft aiming to study Mercury must accelerate to incredible speeds, and that can take ...

On Aug. 3, 2004, NASA launched the MESSENGER spacecraft on a historic first mission to orbit the planet Mercury. The spacecraft's name stands for the MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry ...

BepiColombo, the current spacecraft studying Mercury, is a joint mission of the European Space Agency and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. Launched October 20, 2018, it’s actually two ...

If you've never sighted this rocky little world for yourself, you'll never get a better opportunity than right now to see it.

On January 9, 1959, NASA selected the McDonnell Aircraft Corporation to develop the Mercury spacecraft, which would later carry the first American astronauts into space, Alan Shepard and Virgil “Gus” ...