Venus mission ready for blast off

[Mike]

Europe is poised to send a spacecraft to Venus, our closest planetary neighbour and a hothouse world that has been described as Earth's "evil twin".

Venus Express will blast off aboard a Russian rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on 26 October.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4350394.stm

[Rick]

Europe's first space mission to Venus has begun its five-month voyage to our closest planetary neighbour.

Venus Express lifted off on a Russian rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 0333 GMT on Wednesday.

More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4420210.stm

Background: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4335628.stm

[Whitters]

After a highly successful Launch and Early Orbit Phase the mission control team at the European Space Operations Centre, together with the scientists, have begun checking out scientific instruments on board Venus Express as part of the spacecraft's near-Earth commissioning activities.

Full Story:
http://www.esa.int/spacecraftops/ESOC-Article-fullArticle_par-40_1131951616178.html

[Mike]

Europe's Venus Express probe has gone into orbit around the planet after a five-month journey.

Early on Tuesday, mission controllers fired its main engine to reduce its speed and allow it to be caught in the planet's gravitational pull.

Venus Express will orbit our nearest planetary neighbour for about 500 Earth days to study its atmosphere, which has undergone runaway greenhouse warming.

The mission should shed light on the mechanisms of climate change on Earth.

The main engine burn was initiated by controllers at the European Space Agency (Esa's) operations centre in Darmstadt, Germany at 0817 BST.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4895792.stm

[Rick]

The European probe sent to Venus has put itself in the orbit from which it will make scientific observations.

Since its arrival on 11 April, the Venus Express craft has been using its main engine and thrusters to tighten its loop around Earth's neighbour.

More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4756201.stm

[Rick]

The first scientific results are already beaming back from the European Space Agency's Venus Express mission.

After spending nine days in an elongated orbit around the planet in April, the spacecraft has confirmed the existence of a huge double vortex atmospheric system at the south pole of the planet.

More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/06/29/venus_express/

[Rick]

The latest images sent back by Venus Express have given scientists greater insight into the underlying mechanics of the planet's mysterious cloud system.

Equipped with state of the art infrared imaging kit, as it is, Venus Express can peer through the incredibly dense cloud covering, peeling back layer after layer of the turbulent atmosphere.

The winds on Venus are so fast they circumnavigate the planet in just four (Earth) days. By contrast, the planet's day is longer than its own year.

More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/04/05/venus_cloud_pics/

[Rick]

Basking in four times the radiation its sister craft, Mars Express, receives, Venus Express is celebrating its 500th day around, and 500th orbit of, our twin planet.

Although most of the one terabit of data that has been sent back is still being written up (brace yourselves for a flurry of papers some time fairly soon), there have been some startling discoveries.

More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/09/04/venus_express_500/

[Rick]

The European Space Agency's Venus Express probe has confirmed that there is lightning on our twin planet. This means that lightning has been confirmed on four of the solar system's eight official planets, but Venus' storms are unique. While lightning on Earth, Jupiter and Saturn is all associated with water clouds, the electrical discharges on Venus are from clouds of sulphuric acid.

More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/29/venus_lightning/

[mickw]

"Mars and Venus are very different planets," said David Brain, a planetary scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, and a supporting investigator for Venus Express. "Venus's atmosphere is very thick, dry and hot, and Mars's atmosphere is very thin and cold. And yet the same processes are happening on both planets."

More:  http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/080317-mm-mars-venus.html

[Rick]

A European probe orbiting Venus has new data that indicates the planet may once had a lot of water on its surface and even had a system of plate tectonics.

The Venus Express craft has returned infrared maps that show heat variations among the surface rocks.

More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8149361.stm

[mickw]

A European-built spacecraft has used its solar wings as sails to skim through the sweltering atmosphere of Venus at the planet's outermost border with space.

The European Space Agency's (ESA) Venus Express spacecraft conducted five "aerodrag" maneuvers last week, which used the orbiter as a sensor capable of very accurately measuring the atmospheric density just 111 miles (180 km) above the cloud-enshrouded planet.

To do these aerodrag measurements, the solar panels of Venus Express were rotated through five sets of orientations, which changed daily, to exposed the wings to the vanishingly faint wisps of Venus' atmosphere at its boundary with space

More:    space.com

[Rick]

Venus Express Gets Ready To Take The Plunge

After eight years in orbit, ESA's Venus Express has completed routine science observations and is preparing for a daring plunge into the planet's hostile atmosphere.

Venus Express was launched on a Soyuz–Fregat from the Russian Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on 9 November 2005, and arrived at Venus on 11 April 2006.

It has been orbiting Venus in an elliptical 24-hour loop that takes it from a distant 66 000 km over the south pole – affording incredible global views – to an altitude of around 250 km above the surface at the north pole, close to the top of the planet's atmosphere.

More: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Venus_Express/Venus_Express_gets_ready_to_take_the_plunge

[Rick]

Venus Express Aerobraking Update - June 27, 2014

Venus Express completed the 38th aerobraking orbit on 25 June with pericentre passage expected to have occurred at 21:37:04z; the spacecraft was in braking mode between 19:59:05z and 21:54:05z. The predicted pericentre height was 132.7 km (the figures are being confirmed by flight dynamics teams at ESOC).

A second pericentre-lowering manoeuvre will be performed at apocentre (point of furthest distance from the Venus surface) in orbit 2991, occurring on Saturday, 28 June, aiming to bring the craft even lower into the atmosphere and target a dynamic pressure of 0.55 N/m2.

To date, the drag exerted by the atmosphere on the spacecraft has reduced its orbital period by about 20 mins, so aerobraking is having a real effect!

More: http://blogs.esa.int/rocketscience/2014/06/27/aerobraking-update/

[Rick]

Venus Express Rises Again

After a month surfing in and out of the atmosphere of Venus down to just 130 km from the planet's surface, ESA's Venus Express is about to embark on a 15 day climb up to the lofty heights of 460 km.

Since its arrival at Venus in 2006, the spacecraft has been conducting science observations from an elliptical 24-hour orbit that took it from a distant 66 000 km over the south pole – affording incredible global views – to altitudes around 250 km at the north pole, just above the top of the planet's atmosphere.

More: http://sci.esa.int/venus-express/54340-venus-express-rises-again/