The European Space Agency's BepiColombo spacecraft successfully separated from its Mercury Transfer Module on September 3, 2026, at 2 p.m. local time in Germany. ^[1] BepiColombo, a joint mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japanese agency JAXA, began its months-long arrival phase at Mercury on Thursday 2026-09-03, after an eight-year journey that began with its 2018 launch from Earth. ^[2] On 2026-09-03, the two probes of BepiColombo autonomously separated from their transfer module at a velocity of 40 centimeters per second, and a signal confirming the operation's success reached the control center in Darmstadt, Germany, at 1:53 p.m. GMT. ^[3] A key engine burn is scheduled for November 21 to place the spacecraft into a wide orbit around Mercury. ^[4] Engineers responded to the power crisis by redrawing the mission path, cutting back on engine firings, and accepting a later arrival date to keep the spacecraft healthy. ^[5] The Mercury Transfer Module had carried the spacecraft through deep space since 2018 but faced a crisis when its solar panels began underdelivering power about six years into the flight. ^[6] From April 2027, ESA's Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) will study the planet's surface at a distance of 480 kilometers (300 miles), while JAXA's Mio orbiter will follow an elliptical orbit extending up to 11,000 kilometers to examine Mercury's space environment and magnetic field. ^[7] Ignacio Tanco, ESA's head of inner solar system mission operations, said that with Mercury about 200 million kilometers from Earth, there was a rough 30-minute delay between commands sent and execution, so BepiColombo had to perform the strut cut and separation autonomously. ^[8]