Have you ever found yourself in such as a real situation that you can hardly believe it's real?
I'm currently sitting on top of tons of explosives with two great friends ready to be shot into space by one of
humankind's biggest rockets: the mighty Ariane 5.
Perfectly normal day, right?
I'm Bepi and together with Mio up there
We're going on a great adventure through the inner solar system to planet Mercury
But let's not forget about our robot friend
MTM who after this ride on the rocket is going to carry us all the way there.
A journey that will take seven years
flying past other planets along the way
We certainly didn't pick Mercury because it's the most hospitable destination out there
but because there are still so many unsolved questions about this mysterious world.
Our whole lives have been spent getting ready for this great adventure
We worked very hard in school each bringing our own contribution to the mission
Even though it will just be me and Mio investigating Mercury's mysteries.
It will be up to MTM to get us there
We would not get far without our trusty engine
The same is true for all of our teachers getting us ready for launch and our journey towards the Sun
It's going to be very hot at times, like working in a pizza oven
MTM and I needed to get special jackets fitted to protect us.
Well, Mio invented a novel way to keep cool once at Mercury
She's going to spin around to evenly distribute the sun's heat,
but on the way, she will have to sit still inside a Sun shield
As well as math physics and engineering
We also started to learn each other's languages
Mio is from Japan and is very curious about all the different countries and languages in Europe
while I try to learn some Japanese
We began to understand some of the differences between our cultures
which is important because we will spend many years traveling and working together
Throughout the journey we will need to make a lot of manoeuvres and these had to be practiced over and over
We will fly by Earth once, Venus twice and even Mercury six times before orbiting around it
Just imagine, we will be the first mission to study planet Mercury with two spacecraft at the same time
Two friends planning to do some great experiments together.
I was always fascinated by our destination, but I confess I used to be a bit afraid of it
Such an odd orbit and being so close to the Sun made it really difficult to get to
It was the least explored planet in the inner solar system
But one night changed everything
I quickly overcame my fears and became completely captivated
by the thought of travelling to this strange world that so few spacecraft had braved before
I couldn't wait to see it with my own eyes and to understand why it was so different to Earth
As we were growing up our cousin Messenger sent back news of many interesting discoveries on Mercury
Which left us quite curious!
I'm really interested in geological processes like Impact cratering
Volcanic eruptions and tectonic activity
and how that changes the chemistry and appearance of a planet's surface over billions of years
Mio's favorite subjects are magnetic fields and space plasmas
and studying how the Sun influences the planet's environment.
That's actually something we're both going to do.
Investigate how the solar wind interacts with a planet's magnetic field from our two different viewpoints.
Mercury is a rather exposed planet and we would be able to see how the Sun and small meteorites
change the conditions both down there and in the environment along our orbits.
It certainly sounded like we would see lots of changes and we were excited to bring our skills together to better
understand the planet as a complete system.
There are certainly still plenty of mysteries to solve
It's almost time to go