by Robert Freeman

Created on: October 26, 2009   Last Updated: September 24, 2010

During the infancy of the Space Age the only two nations on the world who could even think about mounting a mission to explore Venus were the United States and the now extinct Soviet Union. Of the two nations, the Soviet Union was the nation to dedicate the most time, money, and spacecraft to the early exploration of Venus. Between the years of 1961 and 1984 the Soviet Union launched 18 missions at the "tiny" fireball while the United States launched a mere four in the same time frame and a fifth one in 1989 before a 16 year hiatus where no nation launched a mission to the planet.

The First Flybies

Although the Soviets were the first to launch a mission toward Venus in 1961, the United States' Mariner series of spacecraft were actually the first to come even close to the planet when a flyby occurred during 1962. Two more Mariner flybys would occur during 1967 and 1973 but little, if anything was learned of the planet by these missions. Following the failure of its first three spacecraft launched at Venus, the Soviets' Venera 4 arrived into Venutian orbit on October 18, 1967; a little over five years after its American counterpart streaked by.

The Venera Chronicles

Venera 4 released two thermometers, a barometer, radio altimeter, atmospheric density gauge, 11 gas analyzers, and tow radio transmitters into Venus' atmosphere. The main bus of the spacecraft carried a magnetometer, cosmic ray detector, hydrogen and oxygen indicators, and charged particle traps which contributed to a stockpile of data transmitted back to the motherland.

After a short stay in orbit of the blazing planet, Venera 4 entered the Venutian atmosphere, deployed parachutes and made it to within 24.96 kilometers of the surface before contact with the adventuring spacecraft was lost forever. Its immediate follower; Venera 5; floated in the atmosphere for an impressive 53 minutes before contact was lost with it in 1969 where it carried most of the same instruments as its predecessor.

On December 17, 1970 Venera 7 entered the Venutian atmosphere on its way to making history as the first man-made object to return data after landing on another planet. It took the capsule 35 minutes to float its way down to the surface where it transmitted for 23 minutes before falling to the oppressive temperatures there. Venera 8 recorded a surface temperature of 470 degrees Celsius and 1 kilometer visibility on the surface of Venus where it lasted an amazing 50 minutes and 11 seconds prior to collapsing beneath

• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next Page >>