Mercury probe BepiColombo thrusters are acting up, but science marches on

Trajectory tweak means a delay of almost a year, though 165 km flyby should produce eye candy

The BepiColombo spacecraft is to make a closer-than-planned flyby of Mercury this week, whizzing past the planet at approximately 165 km from the surface after the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Flight Dynamics team tweaked the trajectory to compensate for malfunctioning thrusters.…