Rocky worlds rock

BepiColombo is gearing up for its first Mercury flyby. On October 1, the spacecraft will zip around the planet, reaching its closest approach at an altitude of 200 kilometers (about 124 miles). BepiColombo will gather scientific data and take photos during its slingshot; it’ll hopefully spot impact craters that dot the rocky world. Pictured: Artist impression of BepiColombo flying by Mercury. Image credit: ESA/ATG medialab.

NASA’s Mars missions are taking a break — kind of. Due to the Mars solar conjunction, Perseverance, Ingenuity and other missions will be mostly quiet between October 2 and October 16. During this time, Earth and Mars are at opposite sides of the Sun, putting the various missions at risk of communication issues. During their semi-hiatus, NASA’s missions will carry out simple commands, or “homework.”

Landsat 9 successfully launched into orbit. On September 27, the NASA satellite launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. Landsat 9 is the latest part of a nearly 50-year joint effort between NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS); the satellite will monitor Earth’s natural resources and landscape to help inform policy decisions.

How did Venus get so hellish? The European Space Agency’s EnVision mission aims to find out. Venus seems to have been the most Earth-like planet in our solar system until it experienced a mysterious, dramatic climate shift that turned it into the extremely hostile environment we see now. Launching in 2031, EnVision will study Venus’ surface, subsurface and atmosphere to better understand the chain of events Venus experienced that made it so different from Earth. Pictured: This image of Venus's surface was created by combining data from the Pioneer, Venera, and Magellan missions. Image credit: NASA.

The European Space Agency is bringing its experts straight to you. With exciting missions like EnVision coming up, there’s a lot to learn at the agency’s virtual Open Day on Sunday, October 3rd. This annual event normally takes place at the ESTEC center in the Netherlands, so this year’s virtual Open Day is a unique opportunity for people around the world to hear from scientists, astronauts, and other experts about everything ESA is doing to explore the cosmos. Learn more and register today for this free, online event.

Catch up on the quest to get to Mars. This week’s Planetary Radio brings you the highlights of the recent Humans to Mars summit, which brought together the world’s experts on the effort to send astronauts to the Red Planet. Find out how science, robotics and even blockchain technology all have a role to play in this ambitious endeavor.

There’s still time to join team LightSail 2! Your gift will help us keep LightSail 2 flying, share what we’ve learned about solar sailing with the scientific community, and teach the world about the amazing things that are possible through crowdfunded missions like this one. Donate today!