Computer technology developed in Dundee helped to send a spacecraft on a 48 million-mile, seven-year expedition to Mercury this weekend.

The BepiColombo mission to the smallest and innermost planet in our Solar System launched on 20th October from Kourou, French Guiana. It is a collaborative venture involving the European Space Agency (ESA) and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

BepiColombo is Europe’s first mission to Mercury, the least explored planet in the Solar System, and is also the first mission to involve sending two spacecrafts to record measurements of the planet’s environment simultaneously.

Nervous system

Each spacecraft is fitted with SpaceWire, a computer network developed by Dundee University and STAR-Dundee. The technology, described as the spacecraft’s nervous system, connects processors, instruments and other on-board systems.

Steve Parkes, who is chair of Spacecraft Electronic Systems at Dundee University, and also CTO at STAR-Dundee, said: “Only a few spacecrafts have visited Mercury in the past so little is known about the planet.

“BepiColombo actually comprises three spacecraft – two planetary orbiters and a mother spacecraft that will carry them to Mercury’s orbit – and SpaceWire features on all three.

“One of these was developed by ESA to orbit and map the complete surface of Mercury to high resolution while the other is a Japanese craft that will measure Mercury’s magnetic field and other properties because the planet is believed to be rich in iron and have interesting magnetic properties.

“This is a very tricky mission and one of the big challenges is that Mercury is relatively close to Sun. Temperatures can vary from between -173C at night to 427C during the day so spacecraft have to withstand these extreme temperatures as well as high levels of radiation.”

The spacecrafts will make one flyby of Earth, two of Venus and six of Mercury, before entering Mercury’s orbit.

Parkes added: “Our involvement has effectively been to provide the nervous system of the spacecraft. SpaceWire was developed with input from international spacecraft engineers and has become the standard for use in space missions.”

It is hoped that BepiColombo could shed some light on solar system evolution, and help to reveal how planets orbiting close to their stars in exoplanet systems form and evolve.