Mission
ESA’s BepiColombo mission to planet Mercury is a cornerstone in the scientific program of the Agency. However, it is a challenging one: in fact, Solar heat fluxes may be 10 times higher than those experienced on Earth! Further, the extreme temperature gradients observed around Mercury make the orbiting spacecraft receive a highly varying load of planetary fluxes.
The goal of MSASI is to acquire measurements that will provide new information on regolith-exosphere-magnetosphere coupling as well as new understanding of the dynamics governing the exosphere bounded by the planetary surface, the solar wind and interplanetary space.

Case Study
Active Space Technologies was responsible for the phase A thermal analysis and design of the MSASI-M (MERCURY SODIUM ATMOSPHERE SPECTRAL IMAGER), an instrument developed by Hovemere, which will be launched onboard the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO).