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Find a Node - Use these links to navigate to any of the 8 publicly accessible PDS Nodes.

This bar indicates that you are within the PDS enterprise which includes 6 science discipline nodes and 2 support nodes which are overseen by the Project Management Office at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). Each node is led by an expert in the subject discipline, supported by an advisory group of other practitioners of that discipline, and subject to selection and approval under a regular NASA Research Announcement.


                     












The Flyby

The ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission completed its first flyby of Venus on 15 October 2020, coming within 10 720 km of the planet at 03:58 UTC (05:58 CEST) for a gravity assist maneuvre. The gravity assist maneuver was the first at Venus During its seven-year cruise to Mercury BepiColombo makes one flyby at Earth, two at Venus and six at Mercury to brake against the gravitational pull of the Sun in order to enter orbit around Mercury. The second Venus flyby will occur 11 August 2021 at a distance of 1,007 KM.

BepiColombo, which comprises ESA’s Mercury Planetary Orbiter and the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), is scheduled to enter orbit at Mercury in 2025 and carries the following instruments on board the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and on the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO)

The PSA serves the BepiColumbo team as a working archive and will open for public access in 2022.