BepiColombo Launch & Cruise Phase Options

[bobik]

The 5th Solar Conjunction Experiment (SCE#5) begins today, for which solely Estrack's specially equipped Malargüe station will be used for the next 14 days.

[nogal]

And here is a flyby movie which also includes a reconstructed 3D view of a special interest area.
Link
Fernando

[bobik]

Pre-3rd-flyby presentation about the Shape-from-Shading (SFS) technique in the context of BepiColombo and the scientific utilization of the MCAM images in general.

[bobik]

The SpaceOps-2023 paper on BepiColombo flight operations is finally available, among others, it contains the first public, detailed account of two safe mode events which, by the way, were already noticed in this thread (see #52 and #71) and also some interesting statistics of in-flight anomalies.

[bobik]

During the end of January the front side of the HGA once again came into view of MCAM3. No major changes are apparent. I wonder when official thoughts on anomaly BC_SC-186 will transpire.


One frame per day, 21-01-2024 to 01-02-2024

[bobik]

According to the public dashboard of the BepiColombo Quick-Look Analysis (QLA) tool, a Safe Mode Recovery pass was requested on 2024-04-04, the second day of Platform Checkout #11, and performed on 2024-04-07, respectively. Two additional Safe Mode Recovery passes are scheduled for 2024-04-19 and 2024-04-20. I can't wait for SpaceOps2025 to get some information what is going on...!

[Hungry4info]

Glitch on BepiColombo: work ongoing to restore spacecraft to full thrust
https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Operat..._to_full_thrust

The ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission to Mercury has experienced a technical issue that is preventing its thrusters from operating at full power. Top spaceflight experts from ESA and its partners are working the problem, but the long-term impact on the mission is uncertain.

on 26 April, as BepiColombo was scheduled to begin its next manoeuvre, the Transfer Module failed to deliver enough electrical power to the spacecraft’s thrusters.

A combined team from ESA and the mission’s industrial partners set to work the moment the issue was identified. By 7 May, they had restored BepiColombo’s thrust to approximately 90% of its previous level. However, the Transfer Module’s available power is still lower than it should be, and so full thrust cannot yet be restored.

[bobik]

A brief update on the BepiColombo problems. Solar electric propulsion continues until the end of June, according to a revised program, and another "topping-up" thrust phase was added for July. There is no new information on the technical cause of the anomaly, besides that "[t]he team is currently verifying the entire power generation and distribution chain on [the MTM]".

By the way, recently, a plethora of pass requests for the end of June appeared on the BepiColombo Quick-Look Analysis tool.

[bobik]

Is this part of a power conservation effort? The SIXS and BERM instruments are reportedly switched off and regular MCAM images have ceased on the 2nd of May.

EDIT: Regular MCAM operation restarted on 2024-08-01, with additional and regular imaging of the accessible solar array (SA). By the way, this Solar Orbiter mission status presentation mentions analysis on SA performance in support of BepiColombo anomaly.

[bobik]

Less than two weeks before the next scheduled Mercury swingby (MSB4), there are not many updates since ESA's alarming Glitch web release, though, attitude and orbital speed data, accessed through WebGeocalc, suggest that chemical propulsion manoeuvres of 31 m/s and 0,33 m/s were performed on 2024-07-31 and 2024-08-16, respectively. EDIT: A small manoeuvre (0,1 m/s) was performed early on 2024-08-23 and also one on 2024-08-09 perpendicular to the orbital plane, it seems.

[ynyralmaen]

A preview of this week's Mercury swingby 4 and the announcement of a revised arrival date at Mercury is available here.

[Explorer1]

An 11 month delay is so much better than missing entirely! The flexibility and efficiency of ion engines is once again demonstrated.
No word on the ultimate cause of the thrust issues in the MTM?

[Floyd]

An 11 month delay is so much better than missing entirely! The flexibility and efficiency of ion engines is once again demonstrated.
No word on the ultimate cause of the thrust issues in the MTM?

The the article linked by ynyralmaen above yours states:

Engineers identified unexpected electric currents between MTM’s solar array and the unit responsible for extracting power and distributing it to the rest of the spacecraft. Onboard data imply that this is resulting in less power available for electric propulsion.

So nothing wrong with propulsion system, but rather power derived to it.

[nogal]

Here is a link to a news source on European spaceflight missions I often use:

https://europeanspaceflight.com/

Fernando

[ynyralmaen]

First images from Bepi's 4th Mercury flyby have been released here.