About ESA
The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
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Space in Member States
Find out more about space activities in our 23 Member States, and understand how ESA works together with their national agencies, institutions and organisations.
Germany
Austria
Belgium
Denmark
Spain
Estonia
Finland
France
Greece
Hungary
Ireland
Italy
Luxembourg
Norway
The Netherlands
Poland
Portugal
Czechia
Romania
United Kingdom
Slovenia
Sweden
Switzerland
Science & Exploration
Exploring our Solar System and unlocking the secrets of the Universe
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Enabling & Support
Making space accessible and developing the technologies for the future
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BepiColombo Archive
Investigating Mercury's mysteries
BepiColombo will be the second and most complex mission ever to orbit Mercury. Close to the Sun and more difficult for an orbiter to reach than Saturn, this small desert world is the least explored planet of the inner Solar System. Learning more about Mercury will shed light on the history of the entire Solar System.
Packed with scientific instruments, the mission will try to answer many perplexing questions, such as: Why is there ice in the polar craters of the scorched planet? Why does Mercury have a magnetic field? And what are the mysterious 'hollows' on its surface?
- Launch: 20 October 2018 on an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe's Spaceport
- Components: Mercury Planetary Orbiter, Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter, Mercury Transfer Module
- Status: In operation; en route to Mercury
- Mercury flybys: 1 Oct 2021, 23 June 2022, 19 June 2023, 4 Sept 2024, 1 Dec 2024, 8 Jan 2025
- Arrival at Mercury: November 2026
- Beginning of routine science operations at Mercury: Early 2027
