SORBET (acronym for "Spectroscopie des Ondes Radio et du Bruit Electrostatique Thermique") is an high frequency radio receiver (2.5kHz-10MHz), designed and built at LIRA, which is part of the PWI (Plasma Waves Investigation) experiment aimed at studying, for the very first time in radio frequencies, Mercury’s small magnetosphere and its interaction with the solar wind.
This experiment is carried out on board the MMO (Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter) satellite built by the Japanese space agency (JAXA). Since May 2018, it has been named みお (‘mio’) in Japanese.
It is one of two satellites forming the BepiColombo mission (ESA-JAXA mission). BepiColombo was transported to the Guiana Space Centre in April 2018 and launched on 18 October 2018.
The Mercury orbit insertion is planned on November 21, 2026 and the MPO-MMO separation on December 9, 2026.
The MMO nominal science phase is scheduled to start on April 2027.
More details about SORBET science objectives, instrument design and teams can be found in https://lira.obspm.fr/-SORBET-sur-MMO-BepiColombo-274-.
See https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/bepicolombo.
