2 spacecraft will soon reach Mercury after 8 years in space. Here's what BepiColombo can do - Space

The BepiColombo mission, a joint venture between the European Space Agency and Japan's JAXA that launched in October 2018, is set to reach Mercury after roughly eight years traveling through the inner solar system.
On Thursday, September 3, the mission is carrying out a key maneuver: separating its two science probes from the transport module that carried them, with data collection expected to begin by April 2027.
The spacecraft completed its sixth and final gravity assist at Mercury on January 8, 2025, as it sped past the planet to adjust its trajectory.
Mercury remains the least-explored planet in the inner solar system, previously visited by only two missions — NASA's Mariner 10, which made three flybys in 1974 and 1975, and NASA's MESSENGER, which arrived in 2011.
Mariner 10 provided the first close-up views of Mercury's cratered surface and confirmed the planet has a thin atmosphere and a magnetic field, though many questions about the world remained unanswered.
Scientists including Rachel Klima of Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and Columbia University's Sean Solomon, who led the MESSENGER mission, anticipate the new observations could shed light on Mercury and the broader solar system.