News

Dr H. Hietala, Senior Lecturer in Space Plasma Physics at QMUL, has been appointed a Guest Investigator on the BepiColombo mission. BepiColombo is a joint mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) to the planet Mercury consisting of two spacecraft. Launched on 20 October 2018, it will arrive at Mercury in November 2026, with science operations starting in early 2027.

In March 2026, ESA, JAXA, and NASA appointed 11 Guest Investigators: 5 from ESA member states, 5 from the USA, and 1 from Japan.

Dr Hietala will use Mercury's small bow shock and magnetosphere as a unique Solar System laboratory to study shock dynamics in high magnetic fields and strong driving close to the Sun. She will also combine BepiColombo with SolarOrbiter and ParkerSolarProbe missions to obtain multi-point measurements of the propagation of large-scale interplanetary shocks driven by solar eruptions before they impact Earth.