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Decade-Long Isolation Of Venus To End At Last

Venus Express -- a virtual copy of the Mars Express now orbiting the Red Planet -- carries seven powerful instruments designed to tear away the veil that is the complex Venusian atmosphere.
by Staff Writers
Paris (AFP) Apr 10, 2006
For more than 11 years, Earth's closest neighbour has been unexplored, left alone to silently circle the Sun, remaining a planet as cryptic as it is hostile. With luck, this will change on Tuesday when a European probe arrives at Venus after a 400-million-kilometre (250-million-mile) trip.

Its mission is to orbit this pressure-cooker of a planet for nearly three years, peering into the toxic clouds that shroud it in a bid to answer questions that are immensely relevant to us on Earth.

But good luck has never been a factor in the exploration of Venus.

The planet that carries such welcoming names -- the Shepherd Star, the Morning Star, the Planet of Love -- is also the graveyard of dreams.

In a long litany of failed missions, the most successful has been the US orbiter Magellan, which radar-mapped 98 percent of the planet's surface. It ended in October 1994.

Since then, scorching Venus has been snubbed. Mankind has favoured exploration of Mars, cooler and water-enticing, and the mighty outer planets, the gatekeepers of the Solar System.

Now interest in Venus has suddenly revived.

Venus, so close, so similar in size to Earth, appears to be an example of a runaway greenhouse where the atmosphere works in a vicious circle to store up solar heat to the point where the surface of the planet is thought to be hotter that the surface of Mercury.

Understanding the physics of this could yield precious insights for Earth, where man-made global warming, driven by fossil fuels, is a looming danger.

Tuesday is the moment of truth for the European Space Agency's 220-million-euro (264-million-dollar) probe.

Launched from Russia's space base at Baikonur on November 9, the craft has to perform a precise series of manoeuvres in order to be captured in orbit.

"Venus orbit insertion is a complex step. The main challenge is that the manoeuvre must happen at the right time," said Jean-Baptiste Gratadour, attitude and orbital control systems engineer at ESA's Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany.

At that time, Venus Express will be 125 million kilometers (78 million miles) from Earth, and radio signals will take 13 and a half minutes to make the round trip.

At 0603 GMT, the craft will be rotated so that it faces back to front, and at 0819 GMT it will instructed to fire its main engines for exactly 51 minutes to slow its speed of 29,000 kms (18,125 miles) per hour by around 15 percent.

Venus's gravitional pull will do the rest, although further engine "burns" will be needed over the coming weeks to fine-tune the orbital track.

The goal is that, by early May, the scout will be placed in an elliptical orbit, swooping to as low as 250 kms (156 miles) above the surface to a height of 66,000 kms (41,250 miles).

Venus Express -- a virtual copy of the Mars Express now orbiting the Red Planet -- carries seven powerful instruments designed to tear away the veil that is the complex Venusian atmosphere.

The payload includes sensors to track the planet's multilayered, roiling clouds in visible light, infra-red and ultraviolet.

They will also measure the atmosphere's temperature and chemical composition and analyse its intriguing magnetic field, caused by interaction with the "solar wind" of particles blasted out by the Sun.

The mission has enough fuel to operate for 1,000 Earth days, ESA's website says.

Source: Agence France-Presse

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Venus Express On Final Approach
Darmstadt, Germany (SPX) Apr 2, 2006
ESA's Venus Express spacecraft is closing in on Earth's veiled neighbor after a five-month, 400-million-kilometer (250-million-mile) journey, which began last Nov. 9. The spacecraft is expected to enter orbit on April 11.







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