Venus’s atmosphere is composed almost entirely of carbon dioxide, with very little water vapour. It has significant amounts of corrosive sulphur-bearing gases and rapidly moving clouds of sulphuric acid droplets. The dense clouds scatter back to space about 80% of the radiation received from the Sun.
Despite only the small amount of solar flux reaching the surface, enough energy is trapped by gases and particles present in the lower atmosphere, to raise the temperature at the surface dramatically, enough to make Venus’s surface the hottest in the Solar System.
On 12 October 2005, at the Upper Composite Integration Facility at Baikonur, the mechanical mating took place of the 'stack', the composite of the launch vehicle adapter and the Venus Express spacecraft, with the Fregat upper-stage rocket.
Animation showing the Venus Orbit Insertion (VOI) burn (where Venus Express fires its engine to slow down enough to be captured by the gravity of Venus and enter orbit).
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