Venus Express
Venus Express — ESA's first mission to Venus, launched on 9 November 2005 and in orbit around the planet from 11 April 2006. From a 24-hour polar orbit that came within about 250 km of Venus over its north polar region and swung out to 66,000 km, it studied the atmosphere for eight years: it confirmed a huge double vortex over the south pole, found a thin ozone layer high in the atmosphere, and found hot spots that ESA calls the best evidence yet for active volcanism. After a last campaign dipping into the atmosphere it ran out of propellant; contact was lost on 28 November 2014, and it later burned up in the atmosphere, probably early in 2015.
Key facts
Mission & specifications
Mission
- Operator
- ESA
- Launched
- November 9, 2005
- Status
- Completed
Trajectory
- Speed rel. Venus
- 4.05 km/s
- Computed from the cached state vector, relative to Venus
- Distance from the Sun
- 0.726 AU
- Computed from the cached position
- Distance from Earth
- 0.382 AU
- Computed from cached positions
- Distance from Venus
- 0.191 AU
- Computed from cached positions
Mission
Venus Express was ESA's first mission to Venus. It was launched on a Soyuz-Fregat from Baikonur on 9 November 2005 at 03:33 UTC, and on 11 April 2006 its engine fired for about 50 minutes to put it into orbit around Venus. By 7 May 2006 it was in its working orbit: once every 24 hours, over the poles, coming within about 250 km of Venus over the north polar region and swinging out to 66,000 km. It studied the atmosphere for eight years. Its first orbits confirmed a huge "double-eye" vortex over the south pole. It found a thin layer of ozone high in the atmosphere and more lightning than Earth's. Its infrared maps showed fresh lava flows and, in 2015, Shalygin and colleagues reported spots at Ganiki Chasma that brightened and faded again, which ESA called the best evidence yet for active volcanism. With its propellant running low, in June and July 2014 it was lowered to dip into the atmosphere, as low as 129.2 km, to test aerobraking. Its last burns to raise the orbit again used up the propellant, and full contact was lost on 28 November 2014; ESA announced the end of the mission on 16 December. Its radio carrier was still detected in January 2015. It then burned up in the atmosphere, probably in late January or early February 2015.
- 2005Venus Express launches toward Venus on a Soyuz-Fregat rocketLaunch
A 50-minute burn of its main engine.
- 2006In its 24-hour polar orbitMilestone
About 250 km above Venus at its lowest, 66,000 km at its highest.
- 2014Dips to 129.2 km in the atmosphereMilestone
Testing aerobraking at the end of its mission.
- 2014Contact lostMission end
Its propellant spent, it later burns up in the atmosphere.
Images
No openly licensed image of Venus Express, or taken by it, has been found.