BepiColombo Selfie Cameras
MCSE has developed a spacecraft Monitoring Camera System for the BepiColombo mission to Mercury
Launched on 20 October 2018
Mission Duration 8 years
Project: Monitoring Camera System
Customer: Airbus Defence and Space / ESA
Successful operation since 20 October 2018
BepiColombo is Europe’s first mission to Mercury. The mission comprises two spacecraft: the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (Mio). BepiColombo is a joint mission between ESA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), executed under ESA leadership.
The main objectives of the system are to take images of the deployment sequence of the MTM solar panels during the LEOP phase, to takes images for monitoring purposes of the electric thruster at MTM level during the cruise phase to Mercury, and to take images during the fly-bys of Earth, Venus and Mercury planets.
The system is composed of three miniaturized micro-cameras (MCAM) based on MCSE flight heritage design and connected to an interface box (CAM Box) allowing data and power interfacing of the three micro-cameras with respect to the S/C I/F features.
The data communication is SpaceWire with PUS packets.
