Venus Express

[CalliArcale]

Good news! The contamination issue has been resolved. The spacecraft is set to launch a week from Wednesday (November 9) aboard a Soyuz-Fregat booster. It will be the second European probe to orbit another planet, and the first European probe to orbit Venus. The last probe to visit Venus was Magellan, a Voyager-derived probe that produced the first good global maps of the Venusian surface using its large high-gain antenna as a radar instrument. Magellan was launched by the Space Shuttle in 1989 and was deliberately deorbited as an end-of-mission experiment to study the upper reaches of Venus' atmosphere in 1994. There has been no mission to Venus since then, so Venus Express is going to be a very exciting mission to watch. <br /><br />(Oops, sorry for the duplicate.) <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[najab]

*duplicate thread* <img src="/images/icons/tongue.gif" />

 

[bdewoody]

What's going on with this mission? There doesn't seem to be much information about current goings on. Is it because the U.S. didn't have a major role in planning or executing this mission? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <em><font size="2">Bob DeWoody</font></em> </div>

 

[no_way]

Its in "routine science operations" phase. You can read all the status reports right here:<br />http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=31575&farchive_objecttypeid=30&farchive_objectid=30930

 

[MeteorWayne]

Thanks for that link. It's been added to my Astronomy-Spacecraft bookmarks. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080"><em><font color="#000000">But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id.</font></em> </font></p><p><font color="#000080">I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function</font><font color="#000080"> </font></p> </div>

 

[themanwithoutapast]

<br />As noted above there is current information available, ESA also does press releases on Venus Express now and then.<br /><br />And yes NASA spends more on PR and thus you get more information on their missions. So because NASA does not have a major role in this missions (actually they are not involved at all, it's an ESA mission) you see a bit less PR than with comparable NASA deep space missions.

 

[jmilsom]

The ESA - Venus Express thread is still active (it was on page 5 of the threads, last post was on 1 August). Here is the thread with relatively recent info plus a link to the mission site:<br /><br />http://uplink.space.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=missions&Number=299000&page=4&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=0&fpart=all <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>