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Project Mercury began in October 1958 as NASA’s first human spaceflight program.
Transfer between the Mercury capsule and the McDonnell laboratory module was via an external inflatable pressurized tunnel.
McDonnell attended contemporary Dyna-Soar discussions in early 1960 but primarily with a Mercury-style re-entry design.
McDonnell Aircraft produced the Mercury capsules used in NASA's Project Mercury.
John Glenn performed the first American orbital Mercury flight on February 20, 1962 in the Friendship 7 capsule.
The Mercury program flew six astronauts in total and continued until 1963.
Alan Shepard flew a suborbital Mercury flight on May 5, 1961 in the Freedom 7 capsule.
The BepiColombo Laser Altimeter (BELA), designed and built in part at the Physics Institute of the University of Bern, will operate from an orbit roughly 1,000 kilometers above Mercury's surface to measure elevations with about 10 centimeter precision.
Detection of new or changed slope lineae between the MESSENGER and BepiColombo eras would provide strong evidence that volatile-driven processes are still reshaping Mercury's surface on human timescales.
The University of Bern contributed the ion optical system for STROFIO, a NASA mass spectrometer on BepiColombo that will measure the composition of Mercury's extremely thin atmosphere.
BELA's elevation measurements will enable detailed three-dimensional reconstructions of Mercury's topography to help refine models of tectonic deformation and surface composition.
Slope lineae could provide a measurable handle on Mercury's volatile budget by effectively recording how much volatile material the planet is still losing over time.
The joint ESA and JAXA BepiColombo mission is en route to Mercury carrying an advanced payload that includes contributions from the University of Bern.
Geostatistical analysis of the new inventory shows that Mercury's slope lineae occur preferentially on sun-facing slopes inside relatively young impact craters that cut through thick volcanic deposits into underlying volatile-rich bedrock.
The study's results imply that volatile outgassing on Mercury is not solely a relic of early planetary history but continues into the present epoch.
The automated inventory mapped the global distribution and shapes of roughly 400 bright streaks (slope lineae) on Mercury that had not been comprehensively cataloged before.
The concentration of slope lineae in thermally stressed, sun-facing crater environments indicates that solar heating is an important trigger for processes that enhance volatile escape from near-surface layers on Mercury.
SIMBIO SYS, an integrated imaging and spectroscopic system led by the INAF principal investigator in Padua, will deliver high-resolution images and stereo data of Mercury's surface on BepiColombo.
Ongoing volatile loss from Mercury has direct implications for reconstructions of the planet's interior composition, thermal evolution, and the history of its tenuous exosphere.
Many slope lineae originate in small, bright depressions called hollows that dot crater floors and walls on Mercury.