Mercury ho! Mariner 10 is on its manner. Venus ho, too. Introduced at 12:45 a.m. (EST) on Nov. 3, Mariner will have to move inside 3,330 miles of Venus on Feb. 5. It is going to then turn into the primary spacecraft to make use of one way … of letting the gravitational box of 1 planet bend its direction round towards a 2nd function. That’s Mercury, after all, the place it’ll arrive lower than two months later.
As of late, the global BepiColombo challenge is the usage of gravitational assists from Mercury — following one from Earth and two from Venus — to influence itself into eventual orbit across the planet (SN: 1/15/21). Starting in 2025, BepiColombo will examine Mercury’s innards and magnetic box.