Science requirements for MERTIS on BepiColombo revisited

The first concepts for the Mercury Radiometer and Thermal Infrared Spectrometer (MERTIS) instrument were developed almost 10years ago. At this time the NASA mission MESSENGER had just been approved and there were almost no laboratory data available on the infrared spectra of minerals at high temperatures. For this reason, the definition of the requirements and the derived design for MERTIS was driven by the idea of “prepare for the unexpected”.