Past missions to Venus
Despite the intensive past exploration of the planet, our knowledge of Venus is still very limited. Almost all of the planet’s peculiar features remain unexplained, so a new phase in the exploration of Venus is long due.
This important scientific call has been picked up by Europe: after a decade, the ‘Morning Star’ will receive a new visit from Venus Express, an orbiter mission developed by the European Space Agency and due for launch in October 2005.
NASA's Pioneer Venus mission (1978), the Soviet Union's Venera 15 and 16 missions (1983-1984), and NASA's Magellan radar mapping mission (1990-1994) provided together a comprehensive picture of a dry world, with landscapes shaped by volcanic and intense geological activity. There were vast plains marked by lava flows, bordered by highlands and mountains.
Later on, the discovery of the night-side thermal emissions from the deep inside the atmosphere of Venus provided an effective tool to peek through the dense clouds and study the lower atmospheric layers.
The Galileo and Cassini spacecraft were the first to use this phenomena during their short fly-bys en route to Jupiter and Saturn.
But the history of Venus exploration goes back even further...
| Mission (year) | Type | Highlights | |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Mariner 2 USA, 1962 |
Atmospheric probe | First spacecraft at Venus. Closest distance 35 000 km. No magnetic field detected. | |
|
Venera 4 USSR, 1967 |
Atmospheric probe | First probe to return data about atmospheric composition. | Crushed by pressure before reaching the surface. |
|
Venera 5 & 6 USSR, 1969 |
Atmospheric probes | Detected presence of atmospheric nitrogen and oxygen. | Crushed by pressure before reaching the surface. |
|
Venera 7 USSR, 1970 |
Lander | First successful soft landing of a spacecraft on another planet. | Measured surface temperature and pressure. |
|
Venera 8 USSR, 1972 |
Lander | First to measure windspeed as it descended through atmosphere. | Surface composition measured by gamma-ray spectrometer. |
|
Mariner 10 USA, 1974 |
Fly-by | First spacecraft to have an imaging system, flew by on way to Mercury in 1974. | Recorded atmospheric circulation and cloud-top temperatures. |
|
Venera 9 & 10 USSR, 1975 |
2 orbiter/landers | First spacecraft in orbit around Venus. | Landers returned the first black and white panoramic images of surface. |
|
Pioneer Venus 1 & 2 USA, 1978-1992 |
1 orbiter 4 atmospheric probes |
Longest mission in orbit around Venus (14 years). First orbiter to make radar map of surface. | Measured structure, composition and cloud properties down to 12 km altitude. |
|
Venera 11 & 12 USSR, 1978 |
Fly-by, 2 landers | Landers investigated structure and composition of atmosphere and clouds, measured solar radiation. | Atmospheric dynamics were studied by Doppler tracking. |
|
Venera 13 & 14 USSR, 1982 |
Fly-by, 2 landers | Landers returned the first colour panoramic views of the surface. | Conducted soil analysis, found leucite basalt (rare on Earth) and tholeiitic basalt . |
|
Venera 15 & 16 USSR, 1983 |
2 orbiters | Radar mapping of the surface. | Detailed study of mesosphere and cloud tops by high-resolution thermal emission spectroscopy. |
|
Vega 1 & 2 USSR, 1985 |
Fly-bys, 1 lander and 1 balloon each | En route to Comet Halley, dropped first balloons into atmosphere of another planet, to record winds. | Landers provided precise temperature profiles down to surface. |
|
Magellan USA, 1990-1994 |
Orbiter | First almost-global radar mapping of the surface. | |
|
Galileo USA, 1990 |
Fly-by en route to Jupiter | Spectral imaging of night-side near-infrared emissions. | Detection of radio waves possibly emitted by lightning. |
|
Cassini-Huygens USA/ESA/I, 1998/99 |
Fly-by en route to Saturn | Spectral imaging of night-side near-infrared emissions. | |
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