BepiColombo arrival at Mercury timeline

After an eight-year journey through the inner Solar System, the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission will arrive at Mercury in late 2026. This arrival happens in stages, because ESA's Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and JAXA's Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (Mio) are travelling to Mercury as a single composite spacecraft. They are stacked on top of the Mercury Transfer Module (MTM), providing power and propulsion, and Mio is sheltered within a sunshield (MOSIF). After separating, MPO and Mio go through extensive spacecraft & instrument commissioning before the science phase of the mission can begin.

Key arrival stages are listed below: 

3 September 2026: While still on the approach to Mercury, MTM separates from the rest. Steering is taken over by MPO's thrusters.
21 November 2026: MPO and Mio, still stacked on top of each other, are captured into a polar orbit around the planet. 
9–10 December 2026: MPO releases Mio onto her final elliptical polar orbit.
16 December 2026: MPO releases Mio's sunshield (MOSIF), and descends to its own orbit using its thrusters.
10 March 2027: MPO arrives in its final orbit. 
6 April 2027: The science phase of the mission begins. 

Note: Exact dates may change for operational reasons. This graphic and its caption were updated in July 2026.

[Image description: An infographic showing the different stages of BepiColombo's arrival at Mercury. Each step shows the configuration of the different spacecraft as they separate from one another, depicted as simplified grey drawings on a dark blue background. A vertical line connects the image for each step to the corresponding date and description at the bottom. An image of Mercury lies on the right edge of the infographic.]