Ariane 5 launches two satellites on 7-year voyage to Mercury

A powerful European Ariane 5 rocket blasted off from French Guiana late Friday and boosted a pair of satellites into space for a seven-year plunge into the inner solar system, a voyage requiring seven planetary flybys to slow down enough in the sun’s gravitational clutches to slip into orbit around hellish Mercury. The $1.9 billion BepiColombo project is only the second, after NASA’s MESSENGER mission, to attempt putting a spacecraft into orbit around the solar system’s innermost planet, one of the most technically challenging missions ever attempted by the European Space Agency and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA. More

(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Oct 21)