A large arc in the night sky over Kourou: BepiColombo lifted off from the European spaceport in French Guiana on 20 October 2018. Its destination: Mercury. Image: ESA
Another European Space Agency (ESA) satellite was launched last October: BepiColombo who is heading for Mercury - with Empa technology on board. Empa coated and soldered individual components meticulously for time-of-flight mass spectrometer sensors. While BepiColombo is now on its long journey, Empa expertise will also be embarking on future ESA missions. The destination: Mercury, the innermost planet of our solar system. The space probe BepiColombo, which was named after Giuseppe (Bepi) Colombo, lifted off in October 2018 and embarked on the long voyage to the nearest planet to the sun with a view to mapping it and determining the geological and chemical composition of its surface. One of the instruments on board is a time-of-flight mass spectrometer, individual components of which were developed at Empa. Hans-Rudolf Elsener from Empa's Joining Technology and Corrosion lab co-developed and built a heatable metal ceramic structure in a complex process.
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