11 April 2006 Ground controllers at ESA’s European Spacecraft Operations Centre (ESOC) confirmed the end of the Venus Express main engine burn at 10:07 today.
A few more automatic operations should now follow to reorient the spacecraft towards the Sun (so-called ‘sun acquisition mode’) and then have one of the spacecraft’s high gain antennas (the HGA 2) oriented towards Earth, ready to establish the first communication link with ground control.
ESA astronaut C. Nicollier on voyaging to Venus
