The end of a chapter

After a long, challenging cruise phase with nine planetary flybys (one by Earth, two by Venus and six by Mercury), BepiColombo finally closed this chapter last Monday by permanently switching off its SEP thrusters. The commands were sent from Earth well in advance to turn off the thrusters at exactly the right moment during the spacecraft’s last thrust arc.

On the morning before the scheduled afternoon SEP system shutdown, Neil Wallace - the lead SEP thruster engineer - met with the mission team and industry partners at ESA’s European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany. Together, they reviewed the lessons learned from BepiColombo’s SEP – a key step towards the implementation of this system in future space missions.