EMC issues on BepiColombo Spacecraft

This paper describes critical EMC issues on the BepiColombo Spacecraft, the ESA mission to Mercury. EMC on this spacecraft is driven by a high power consuming electric propulsion system which can generate extremely high transient currents during operation, and the need for steerable high gain antennas for space to ground communication which can illuminate part of the spacecraft under certain link constellations. Specifically on the European orbiter, accommodation of a gradiometer instrument requires measures to achieve DC and low frequency AC magnetic cleanliness.