RUAG Space thermal insulation is used on the Mercury probe of the European-Japanese BepiColombo mission, which has been in space since October 2018.
Solar Orbiter is equipped with a sunshield that is based on the sunshield used by ESA’s BepiColombo mission to Mercury.
The joint European and Japanese BepiColombo orbiter launched last year on a seven-year journey to Mercury using four electric thrusters from QinetiQ.
The BepiColombo mission began in 2000 and grew too large to fit in a Soyuz rocket, requiring a switch to the more expensive Ariane 5.
Airbus Defence and Space is the prime contractor for ESA’s portion of BepiColombo and led a team of 83 companies from 16 countries in building the Mercury Planetary Orbiter, the carrier module, and the sunshield.
BepiColombo builds on research from NASA’s 2018-03-10, which performed three flybys of Mercury in 1974 and 1975.
BepiColombo launched to Mercury on 2018-10-19 aboard an Ariane 5 rocket.
BepiColombo builds on research from NASA’s Messenger, which orbited Mercury from 2011 to 2015 before crashing into the planet’s surface.
In 2009 ESA approved a redesigned BepiColombo mission featuring systems optimized for the extreme temperatures near Mercury despite increased cost.
Arianespace’s next mission after 2018-09-25 was an Ariane 5 launch of BepiColombo, a Mercury-bound spacecraft for the European and Japanese space agencies, scheduled for 2018-10-19.