On: BepiColombo’s First Views of Mercury

[adolph]

The closest approach took place at 23:34 UTC on 1 October at an altitude of 199 km from the planet’s surface.

[noizejoy → adolph]

Albeit the pictures are from at least 1000 km away, since closest approach was from the dark side.

[jcims → adolph]

I’m always amazed at the precision of space probe operations.

It’s a bummer we don’t have better space propulsion systems, five years meandering about the inner solar system to get the right speed and angle to enter an orbit around mercury.

[Azrael3000 → jcims]

Scott Manley did a great video on the probe and its approach: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Sj9cjwFhQY

[KineticLensman → jcims]

It’s a bummer we don’t have better space propulsion systems

Hey! I used to work for the company that made BepiColombo's engines [0]

[0] https://www.qinetiq.com/en/news/pioneering-qinetiq-solar-ele...

[jcims → KineticLensman]

Ah now i get the username! :D

Very cool!

[KineticLensman → jcims]

Thank you. It actually started for photography reasons when I knew a (friendly) rival photographer who worked for one of our customer organizations.

[Edit] That and my liking for the Space Opera novels written by E.E. 'Doc' Smith.

[jcims → KineticLensman]

Ah! Nice! Works for photography and for a person that builds ion drives. I'll leave you alone now haha.