"Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on October 3, 1985. This was the maiden voyage of the Atlantis, the final Orbiter in the Shuttle fleet. After 98 hours of orbital operations, Atlantis landed at Edwards Air Force Base, California, on October 7, 1985. Mission duration was 97 hours, 14 minutes, 38 seconds. STS-30 Atlantis launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on May 4, 1989. During the four-day mission, the crew successfully deployed the Magellan Venus-exploration spacecraft, the first U.S. planetary science mission launched since 1978, and the first planetary probe to be deployed from the Shuttle. Magellan arrived at Venus in mid-1990,"
"Venera 9 Venera 9 ( meaning ""Venus 9""), manufacturer's designation: 4V-1 No. 660, was a Soviet unmanned space mission to Venus. It consisted of an orbiter and a lander. It was launched on June 8, 1975, at 02:38:00 UTC and had a mass of . The orbiter was the first spacecraft to orbit Venus, while the lander was the first to return images from the surface of another planet. The orbiter entered Venus orbit on October 20, 1975. Its mission was to act as a communications relay for the lander and to explore cloud layers and atmospheric parameters with several"
"slingshot maneuvers around Jupiter and Saturn. The ""Galileo"" spacecraft was launched by NASA in 1989 aboard Space Shuttle ""Atlantis"". Its original mission was designed to use a direct Hohmann transfer. However, ""Galileo"" intended booster, the cryogenically fueled Centaur booster rocket was prohibited as a Shuttle ""cargo"" for safety considerations following the loss of Space Shuttle ""Challenger"". With its substituted solid rocket upper stage, the IUS, which could not provide as much delta-""v"", Galileo did not ascend directly to Jupiter, but flew by Venus once and Earth twice in order to reach Jupiter in December 1995. The ""Galileo"" engineering review speculated"
"Mercury. MESSENGER Messenger (stylized as MESSENGER, a backronym for ""MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging""; the name is a reference to the messenger deity of the same name from Roman mythology) was a NASA robotic spacecraft that orbited the planet Mercury between 2011 and 2015. The probe was launched aboard a Delta II rocket in August 2004 to study Mercury's chemical composition, geology, and magnetic field. The instruments carried by ""MESSENGER"" were used on a complex series of flybys – the spacecraft flew by Earth once, Venus twice, and Mercury itself three times, allowing it to decelerate relative to"
"1979 and Saturn in 1980 – 1981. ""Voyager 2"" then went on to make close approaches to Uranus in 1986 and Neptune in 1989. The ""Voyager"" probes are now far beyond Neptune's orbit, and are on course to find and study the termination shock, heliosheath, and heliopause. According to NASA, both ""Voyager"" probes have encountered the termination shock at a distance of approximately 93 AU from the Sun. The first flyby of a comet occurred in 1985, when the ""International Cometary Explorer"" (ICE) passed by the comet Giacobini–Zinner, whereas the first flybys of asteroids were conducted by the ""Galileo"" space"
"and ""MESSENGER"" (2006). Then, ""Venus Express"" by the European Space Agency (ESA) entered orbit around Venus in April 2006. Equipped with seven scientific instruments, ""Venus Express"" provided unprecedented long-term observation of Venus's atmosphere. ESA concluded that mission in December 2014. As of 2016, Japan's ""Akatsuki"" is in a highly elliptical orbit around Venus since 7 December 2015, and there are several probing proposals under study by Roscosmos, NASA, and India's ISRO. In 2016, NASA announced that it was planning a rover, the Automaton Rover for Extreme Environments, designed to survive for an extended time in Venus's environmental conditions. It would"
"MESSENGER Messenger (stylized as MESSENGER, a backronym for ""MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging""; the name is a reference to the messenger deity of the same name from Roman mythology) was a NASA robotic spacecraft that orbited the planet Mercury between 2011 and 2015. The probe was launched aboard a Delta II rocket in August 2004 to study Mercury's chemical composition, geology, and magnetic field. The instruments carried by ""MESSENGER"" were used on a complex series of flybys – the spacecraft flew by Earth once, Venus twice, and Mercury itself three times, allowing it to decelerate relative to Mercury"
"Venera 8 Venera 8 ( meaning ""Venus 8"") was a probe in the Soviet Venera program for the exploration of Venus and was the first robotic space probe to conduct a successful landing on the surface of Venus. Venera 8 was a Venus atmospheric probe and lander. Its instrumentation included temperature, pressure, and light sensors as well as an altimeter, gamma ray spectrometer, gas analyzer, and radio transmitters. The spacecraft took 117 days to reach Venus with one mid-course correction on 6 April 1972, separating from the bus (which contained a cosmic ray detector, solar wind detector, and ultraviolet spectrometer)"
"the periapsis was held between 150 and 250 km until the fuel ran out and atmospheric entry destroyed the spacecraft in August 1992. The Pioneer Venus Multiprobe was launched on August 8, 1978 on an Atlas-Centaur rocket. It consisted of a 290 kg bus which carried one large (315 kg) and three small atmospheric probes. The large probe was released on November 16, 1978 and the three small probes on November 20. All four probes entered the Venus atmosphere on December 9, followed by the bus. The Pioneer Venus large probe was about 1.5 m in diameter and equipped with"
"Pioneer Venus Multiprobe The Pioneer Venus Multiprobe, also known as Pioneer Venus 2 or Pioneer 13 was a spacecraft launched in 1978 to explore Venus as part of NASA's Pioneer program. This part of the mission included a spacecraft Bus which was launched from Earth carrying one large and three smaller probes, which after separating penetrated the Venusian atmosphere at a different location, returning data as they descended into the planet's thick atmosphere. The entry occurred on December 9, 1978. There was also an orbiter launched this year, part of the overall Pioneer Venus project along with this entry probe"
"obtained with the Soviet ""Venera 13"" and ""14"" landers. NASA obtained additional data in 1978 with the Pioneer Venus project that consisted of two separate missions: Pioneer Venus Orbiter and Pioneer Venus Multiprobe. The successful Soviet Venera program came to a close in October 1983, when ""Venera 15"" and ""16"" were placed in orbit to conduct detailed mapping of 25% of Venus's terrain (from the north pole to 30°N latitude) Several other Venus flybys took place in the 1980s and 1990s that increased the understanding of Venus, including ""Vega 1"" (1985), ""Vega 2"" (1985), ""Galileo"" (1990), ""Magellan"" (1994), ""Cassini–Huygens"" (1998),"
"from Earth due to its proximity to the sun during February 1986. UV spectrometer observations monitored the loss of water from the comet's nucleus at perihelion on February 9. Pioneer Venus Orbiter The Pioneer Venus Orbiter, also known as Pioneer Venus 1 or Pioneer 12, was a mission to Venus conducted by the United States as part of the Pioneer Venus project. Launched in May 1978 atop an Atlas-Centaur rocket, the spacecraft was inserted into an elliptical orbit around Venus on December 4, 1978. It returned data on Venus until October 1992. The Pioneer Venus Orbiter was launched by an"
"Pioneer Venus project The Pioneer Venus project was part of the Pioneer program consisting of two spacecraft, the Pioneer Venus Orbiter and the Pioneer Venus Multiprobe, launched to Venus in 1978. The program was managed by NASA's Ames Research Center. An official Ames documentary film titled ""Venus Pioneers"" is visible on George Van Valkenburg's YouTube Channel. The Pioneer Venus Orbiter entered orbit around Venus on December 4, 1978, and performed observations to characterize the atmosphere and surface of Venus. It continued to transmit data until October 1992. The Pioneer Venus Multiprobe deployed four small probes into the Venusian atmosphere on"
"bus made measurements only to about 110 km altitude before burning up. Pioneer Venus project The Pioneer Venus project was part of the Pioneer program consisting of two spacecraft, the Pioneer Venus Orbiter and the Pioneer Venus Multiprobe, launched to Venus in 1978. The program was managed by NASA's Ames Research Center. An official Ames documentary film titled ""Venus Pioneers"" is visible on George Van Valkenburg's YouTube Channel. The Pioneer Venus Orbiter entered orbit around Venus on December 4, 1978, and performed observations to characterize the atmosphere and surface of Venus. It continued to transmit data until October 1992. The"
"Venera The Venera (, ) series space probes were developed by the Soviet Union between 1961 and 1984 to gather data from Venus, Venera being the Russian name for Venus. As with some of the Soviet Union's other planetary probes, the later versions were launched in pairs with a second vehicle launched soon after the first. Ten probes from the Venera series successfully landed on Venus and transmitted data from the surface of Venus, including the two Vega program and Venera-Halley probes. In addition, thirteen Venera probes successfully transmitted data from the atmosphere of Venus. Among the other results, probes"
"Exploration of Neptune The exploration of Neptune has only begun with one spacecraft, ""Voyager 2"" in 1989. Currently there are no approved future missions to visit the Neptunian system. NASA, ESA and also independent academic groups have proposed future scientific missions to visit Neptune. Some mission plans are still active, while others have been abandoned or put on hold. Neptune has also been scientifically studied from afar with telescopes, primarily since the mid 1990s. This includes the Hubble Space Telescope but most importantly ground-based telescopes using adaptive optics. After having visited Saturn successfully, it was decided to continue and fund"
"1989 to propel the spacecraft from Orbiter ""Atlantis"" on a 15-month loop around the Sun and eventually into orbit around Venus for four years of radar surface-mapping. Many Shuttle flights carried equipment for performing on-board research. Such equipment was accommodated in two forms: on pallets or other arrangements in the Shuttle's cargo bay (most often in addition to hardware for the primary mission), or within a reusable laboratory called Skylab. All such experimental payloads were under the general responsibility of MSFC. Pallet experiments covered a very wide spread of types and complexity, but many of them were in fluid physics,"
"were launched, forming the necessary baselines for a position determination. The Pioneer Venus Orbiter and its Soviet counterparts, Venera 11 and 12, took gamma detectors to the orbit of Venus. In addition, the spacecraft Prognoz-7 and ISEE-3 remained in Earth orbit. These formed an Earth-Venus-Sun triangle, and the probes at Venus formed a smaller triangle. 84 bursts were detected, until the network degraded in 1980. The Pioneer Venus Orbiter continued until it entered the Venus atmosphere in 1992, but not enough other spacecraft were functioning to form the required baselines. On March 5 and 6, 1979, two bursts of hard"
"Voyager 2 Voyager 2 is a space probe launched by NASA on August 20, 1977, to study the outer planets. Part of the Voyager program, it was launched 16 days before its twin, ""Voyager 1"", on a trajectory that took longer to reach Jupiter and Saturn but enabled further encounters with Uranus and Neptune. It is the only spacecraft to have visited either of the ice giant planets. Its primary mission ended with the exploration of the Neptunian system on October 2, 1989, after having visited the Uranian system in 1986, the Saturnian system in 1981, and the Jovian system"
"demonstration option. Called ""Cupid's arrow"" it would pack a quadrupole ion trap mass spectrometer into nanosat atmospheric ""skimmer"". VERITAS (spacecraft) VERITAS (Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy) is a proposed mission concept by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) to map with high resolution the surface of planet Venus. The combination of surface topography and image data would provide knowledge of Venus' tectonic and impact history, the timing and mechanisms of volcanic resurfacing, and the mantle processes responsible for them. A reformulation of this mission concept, under the name Venus Origins Explorer (VOX), was proposed in 2017 to compete"
"orbital inclinations from 0° to 74°. The ""Rosetta"" probe, launched in March 2004, used four gravity assist maneuvers (including one just 250 km from the surface of Mars) to accelerate throughout the inner Solar System - enabling it to match the velocity of the 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko comet at their rendezvous point in August 2014. NASA's Parker Solar Probe mission, launched in 2018, will use multiple gravity assists at Venus to remove the Earth's angular momentum from the orbit, in order to drop down to a distance of 8.5 solar radii (5.9 Gm) from the Sun. Parker Solar Probe's mission will be"
"far layers of our heliosphere, thus concluding the craft had broken beyond the heliopause. Voyager 2 was launched by NASA on August 20, 1977. The probe's primary mission was to visit the ice giants, Uranus and Neptune, which it completed on October 2, 1989. It is currently the only probe to have visited the ice giants. It is the fourth of five spacecraft to have left the solar system. It has been operational for 41 years and 2 months as of October 20, 2018. Cassini–Huygens was a 5,712kg (12,593lb) space probe designed to study gas giant Saturn, along with its"
"made the problem worse and all cameras failed on those missions. Venera 13 and 14 were the only landers on which all cameras worked properly; although unfortunately, the titanium lens cap on Venera 14 landed precisely on the area which was targeted by the soil compression probe. Venera The Venera (, ) series space probes were developed by the Soviet Union between 1961 and 1984 to gather data from Venus, Venera being the Russian name for Venus. As with some of the Soviet Union's other planetary probes, the later versions were launched in pairs with a second vehicle launched soon"
"Voyager 1 Voyager 1 is a space probe launched by NASA on September 5, 1977. Part of the Voyager program to study the outer Solar System, ""Voyager 1"" launched 16 days after its twin, ""Voyager 2"". Having operated for as of , the spacecraft still communicates with the Deep Space Network to receive routine commands and return data. At a distance of (21.289 billion kilometers; 13.229 billion miles) from the Sun as of June 4, 2018, it is the most distant man-made object from Earth. The probe's objectives included flybys of Jupiter, Saturn, and Saturn's largest moon, Titan. While the"
"protocols introduced as a result of the disaster prohibited the use of the Centaur-G stage on the Shuttle, forcing ""Galileo"" to use a lower-powered Inertial Upper Stage solid-fuel booster. The mission was re-profiled in 1987 to use several gravitational slingshots, referred to as the Venus-Earth-Earth Gravity Assist or VEEGA maneuvers, to provide the additional velocity required to reach its destination. It was finally launched on October 18, 1989, by on the STS-34 mission. ""Galileo"" flew by Venus at 05:58:48 UTC on February 10, 1990, at a range of . Having gained in speed, the spacecraft flew by Earth twice, the"
"the cancellation of the American Halley mission in 1981. A later Venera mission was cancelled and the Venus part of the ""Vega 1"" mission was reduced. Because of this, the craft was designated VeGa, a contraction of ""Venera"" and ""Gallei"" (Венера and Галлея respectively, the Russian words for ""Venus"" and ""Halley""). The spacecraft design was based on the previous Venera 9 and Venera 10 missions. The two spacecraft were launched on December 15 and 21, 1984, respectively. With their redesignated dual missions, the Vega probes became part of the Halley Armada, a group of space probes that studied Halley's Comet"
"Kosmos 359 Kosmos 359 was an unmanned Soviet probe launched on 22 August 1970. The probe's intended purpose was to explore Venus, but an error caused the final-stage rocket to malfunction. This left the craft trapped in an elliptical orbit around Earth for 410 days before orbital decay and atmospheric entry. Kosmos 359 was launched five days after Venera 7 and had an identical design; had the craft not suffered a mission-ending failure, it would have landed on Venus shortly after Venera 7. To publicly acknowledge the failure of the attempted Venus lander would be a public relations disaster for"
"after its previous mission, STS-51-J in October 1985. ""Atlantis"" was then used for ten flights between 1988 and 1992. Two of these, both flown in 1989, deployed the planetary probes ""Magellan"" to Venus (on STS-30) and ""Galileo"" to Jupiter (on STS-34). With STS-30 ""Atlantis"" became the first shuttle to launch an interplanetary probe. During another mission, STS-37 flown in 1991, ""Atlantis"" deployed the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory. Beginning in 1995 with STS-71, ""Atlantis"" made seven straight flights to the former Russian space station Mir as part of the Shuttle-Mir Program. STS-71 marked a number of firsts in human spaceflight: 100th"
"All four probes entered the Venusian atmosphere on December 9, followed by the delivery vehicle. Although not expected to survive the descent through the atmosphere, one probe continued to operate for 45 minutes after reaching the surface. The ""Pioneer Venus Orbiter"" was inserted into an elliptical orbit around Venus on December 4, 1978. It carried 17 experiments and operated until the fuel used to maintain its orbit was exhausted and atmospheric entry destroyed the spacecraft in August 1992. Also in 1978, ""Venera 11"" and ""Venera 12"" flew past Venus, dropping descent vehicles on December 21 and December 25 respectively. The"
"for dust protection from Halley's comet. ""Vega 1"" arrived at Venus on June 11, 1985 and ""Vega 2"" on June 15, 1985, and each delivered a , 240 cm diameter spherical descent unit. The units were released some days before each arrived at Venus and entered the atmosphere without active inclination changes. Each contained a lander and a balloon explorer. The landers were identical to that of the previous five ""Venera"" missions and were to study the atmosphere and surface, each had instruments to study temperature, pressure, a UV spectrometer, a water concentration meter, a gas-phase chromatograph, an X-ray spectrometer,"
"from comparing: one of several spacecraft orbiting the Earth, an inner-Solar-system probe (to Mars, Venus, or an asteroid), and ""Ulysses"". When ""Ulysses"" crossed the ecliptic twice per orbit, many GRB determinations lost accuracy. Additional discoveries: Ulysses (spacecraft) Ulysses (, ) is a decommissioned robotic space probe whose primary mission was to orbit the Sun and study it at all latitudes. It was launched in 1990, made three ""fast latitude scans"" of the Sun in 1994/1995, 2000/2001, and 2007/2008. In addition, the probe studied several comets. ""Ulysses"" was a joint venture of NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) with participation"
"4 to be launched in 2024. Of the 12 proposals submitted and reviewed by NASA, three were associated with this theme: two lander proposals, Venus In situ Composition Investigations (VICI) and Venus In Situ Atmospheric and Geochemical Explorer (VISAGE); and the Venus Origins Explorer (VOX), an orbiter whose proponents claimed would achieve similar scientific outcomes. None of the three advanced to the final shortlist. Venus In Situ Explorer The Venus In Situ Explorer (VISE) has been a lander mission concept proposed since 2003 by the Planetary Science Decadal Survey as a space probe designed to answer fundamental scientific questions by"
"Mariner 10 Mariner 10 was an American robotic space probe launched by NASA on November 3, 1973, to fly by the planets Mercury and Venus. ""Mariner 10"" was launched approximately two years after ""Mariner 9"" and was the last spacecraft in the Mariner program. (Mariner 11 and 12 were allocated to the Voyager program and redesignated ""Voyager 1"" and ""Voyager 2"".) The mission objectives were to measure Mercury's environment, atmosphere, surface, and body characteristics and to make similar investigations of Venus. Secondary objectives were to perform experiments in the interplanetary medium and to obtain experience with a dual-planet gravity assist"