BBCNEWS BBC News October 2, 2021 02:20:00
There have only been two previous missions to mercury, one a long time ago, mariner 10, and then more recently nasa's messenger mission. and this one, bepicolombo, is designed to answer a lot of the questions raised by that messenger mission. so we mentioned in the introduction there the spacecraft is shooting past mercury. it is not actually landing on the planet, is it? what are we watching for in the coming hours? well, the main thing that this flyby is supposed to accomplish is to alter the orbit, alter the trajectory of the spacecraft, as it goes around the sun. they would love to be able...