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Two Mercury-bound spacecraft left their mother ship behind on Thursday and headed down the home stretch of their nearly decade-long voyage to the solar system’s smallest and closest-to-the-sun planet.
The linked European and Japanese spacecraft separated as planned from their cruiser, but controllers had to wait two anxious hours to receive confirmation via radio signals.
The crucial operation was broadcast from the European Space Agency’s control centre in Germany, more than 200 million km (124 million miles) away.
“It’s a brilliant moment,” said lead project scientist Geraint Jones.
If all goes well, the conjoined spacecraft known as BepiColombo will enter orbit around Mercury in November and split from each other in December to map and study the entire planet from different altitudes.
As of Thursday, the spacecraft still had 3.3 million km (2 million miles) to go before reaching its destination.
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