Giuseppe "Bepi" Colombo (2 October 1920 inPadua – 20 February 1984 in Padua) was anItalianscientist,mathematician andengineer at theUniversity of Padua, Italy.
Colombo studied the planetMercury, and it was his calculations which showed how to get a spacecraft into a solar orbit which would encounter Mercury multiple times, using agravity assist manoeuvre with Venus. Due to this idea,NASA was able to have theMariner 10 accomplish three fly-bys of Mercury instead of one.[1]Mariner 10 was the first[2] spacecraft to use gravity assist. Since then, the technique has become common.
Colombo also explained thespin-orbitresonance in Mercury's orbit, showing that it rotates three times for every two orbits around the Sun.
Colombo also made significant contributions to the study ofSaturn's rings, mostly using ground-based observations in the era before space exploration reached the outer Solar System.
Severalastronomical objects and spaceships are named after to honour him:
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