F
flynn
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And the latest news.<br /><br /><b>Venus Express launch campaign starts</b><br /><br /> <br />3 August 2005<br />ESA’s Venus Express spacecraft has just completed its last phase of testing in Europe and is ready to be shipped to its launch site at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.<br /> <br />One and a half years after its sister spacecraft Mars Express arrived at Mars, Europe’s newest planetary probe is ready to depart on the first leg of its journey to Earth’s own sister planet, the mysterious Venus. <br />Venus Express was proposed in 2001, as a mission concept to take as much as possible of the Mars Express design and use it for another planetary mission. <br /><br />The mission to Venus was officially approved in 2002 by ESA’s Science Programme Committee, and the industrial contract to build the spacecraft was awarded in October 2002 to EADS Astrium, leading a team of 25 subcontractors from 14 European countries. <br /><br />Full Story (its a good read) <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font color="#800080">"All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring" - <strong>Chuck Palahniuk</strong>.</font> </div>