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Venus, A Planet Of Broken Dreams
Paris (AFP) Nov 06, 2005 The European Space Agency's Venus Express ends a break of more than 10 years in the exploration of a planet that is notoriously hostile to human scrutiny. Many missions have ended in failure, and those that have succeeded in sending probes or landers to the surface have received a data stream lasting only minutes before the instruments are crushed by the Venusian atmosphere. Here is a chronology of missions to Venus, previous and planned: 1961: Venera 1 (Venus 1), Soviet-made probe designed for a fly-by of Venus. Fate unknown. Communications with ground station broke down about seven million kilometers (4.37 million miles) from Earth. 1962: Mariner 1 and Mariner 2 (US). Mariner 1 veered off-course and had to be destroyed shortly after launch. Mariner 2 became the first successful interplanetary probe. Found no significant magnetic fields or radiation belts around Venus. Heat sensors found the surface to be dry and scorching hot. 1965-83: Venera 2 - Venera 16. Ambitious programme of Soviet campaign of fly-bys and landings, characterised by several failures but some successes. Among them: Venera 7 (1970), which parachuted a capsule of scientific instruments to the surface, marking the first successful landing on Venus, and Venera 9 (1975), which sent back the first TV pictures of the Venusian surface. 1967: Mariner 5 (US). Flyby, measuring magnetic fields, charged particles, ultra-violet emissions. 1973: Mariner 10 (US). NASA flyby of a probe en route for Mercury. Returned first close up pictures of Venus, despite navigational problems. 1978: Pioneer Venus (US). Orbiter, operated until 1992. - Pioneer Venus Multiprobe (US). Comprised one large and three small probes, equipped with sensors, that were sent down to the surface in 1978. 1984: Vega 1 and 2 (Soviet). Flybys of Venus while en route to Halley's Comet, dropped scientific packages to surface. 1989: Magellan (US). Orbiter designed to map Venus' surface. Highly successful. Operated until 1994. - Galileo (US). Flyby of Venus in 1990 while en route to the outer planets. 2004: Messenger (US). Two scheduled fly-bys of Venus (Oct 2006, June 2007) en route to Mercury. 2005: Venus Express (Europe). European Space Agency (ESA) orbiter, designed to study Venus' cloud system. 2008: Planet-C (Japan). Orbiter designed to study dynamics and temperature of Venus' upper atmosphere. 2012: BepiColombo (Europe). ESA probe that will fly-by Venus while en route for Mercury. Community Email This Article Comment On This Article Related Links SpaceDaily Search SpaceDaily Subscribe To SpaceDaily Express Astronomy News from Skynightly.com
Venus Express Completes LEOP Activities
Paris (ESA) Nov 15, 2005The Venus Express Launch and Early Orbit Phase (LEOP) activities again continued to run very smoothly. All foreseen activities were completed and it was also possible to bring forward some platform commissioning activities, which were planned for last weekend. |
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