BepiColombo Mercury Mission to Make First Venus Flyby Tonight

Venus Flyby

The Mercury-bound BepiColombo spacecraft will observe Venus during tonight’s pass, on the hunt for phosphine and sulfur-dioxide.

The joint Japanese/European Space Agency’s BepiColombo spacecraft makes a scheduled pass near Venus tonight, while the cloud-shrouded planet has been very much in the news.

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Instead of Going Straight to Mars, Astronauts Should Make a Slingshot Past Venus First

A computer generated view of Mars, with an area including Gale Crater beginning to catch morning light. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Every 26 months, the orbits of both Earth and Mars conspire to make travel between the two planets shorter. Launching in one of these windows means the travel time can be reduced to only six months. Our robotic missions to the Martian surface, and missions that place satellites in Martian orbit, launch during these windows.

But are there other alternatives to this mission architecture?

One group of researchers says that crewed missions to Mars shouldn’t go directly to their destination; they should slingshot past Venus first.

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