ESA’s first mission to Mercury, BepiColombo, is now set for final thermal tests before launching to the hottest planet in our Solar System in October 2018. Europe said farewell to the spacecraft on 6 July 2017 when it was at the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, in its launch configuration.

BepiColombo is a joint mission to Mercury between the ESA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and consists of two science orbiters: ESA’s Mercury Planetary Orbiter and JAXA’s Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter. The A-roll contains footage of BepiColombo from inside the ESTEC clean room and interview soundbites from those involved in the mission.