This image released 15 Jan 2008 by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and taken 14 Jan 2008 by NASA's Messenger spacecraft at a distance of approximately 17,000 miles following the spacecraft's closest approach to Mercury. (NASA / AFP)
BERLIN — Final preparations are underway for the launch of a joint-European and Japanese mission to Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun.
An Ariane 5 rocket is scheduled to lift the BepiColombo spacecraft into orbit from French Guiana late Friday, after which it will begin its seven-year journey to Mercury.
The mission is complicated by the intense gravity pull of the sun, forcing the spacecraft take an elliptical path that involves two fly-bys of Venus and six of Mercury itself.
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The Ariane 5 rocket, with four Galileo satellites onboard, takes off from the launchpad in the European Space Centre (Europe spaceport) on July 25, 2018 in Kourou, French Guiana. (PHOTO / AFP)
Once BepiColombo, which is named after an Italian scientist, arrives in late 2025, it will release two probes that will independently investigate the surface and magnetic field of Mercury.
The last spacecraft to visit Mercury was NASA's Messenger probe, which ended its mission in 2015.
This handout image obtained from the European Space Agency (ESA) on July 6, 2017 shows the ESA's Mercury spacecraft, the BepiColombo Stack configuration standing in position at a test facility in Spijkenisse. (C Carreau / EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY / AFP)
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