Venus Express

Launch data: Designation  28901 / 05045A Launch date  09 Nov 2005 - 03:33:34 UT Launch site  B, LC-31/6 Launch vehicle  Soyuz-FG/ Fregat S/N° Zh15000-010/ST1 Mission  Venus orbit on 11 Apr 2006 Heliocentric orbit Perihelion / Aphelion   Incl. to ecliptic   ° Period   min Venus trajectory

Description:

• Venus Express (VEX) was built as a cheap copy of the Mars Express design, which itself used the basic bus developed for the Rosetta comet probe.
• Venus Express is ESA's first spacecraft to be launched to Venus. Mass at launch is 1270 kg and includes 93 kg instrumentation. Science payload comprises:
  • Venus Monitoring Camera (VMC)
  • Analyser of Space Plasma and Energetic Atoms (ASPERA)
  • Planetary Fourier Spectrometer (PFS)
  • Visible/Ultraviolet/Near Infra-red Mapping Spectrometer (VIRTIS)
  • Venus Express Magnetometer (MAG)
  • Venus Radio Science Experiment(VeRa)
  • Ultraviolet and Infrared Atmospheric Spectrometer (SPICAV/SOIR)
• The mission will study the atmosphere and environment of Venus.

Mission:

• Venus Express was launched by a Starsem Soyuz-FG/Fregat from Baykonur. (Starsem is a French company closely related to Arianespace which markets the Soyuz in its Europeanized FG/Fregat version). The first three stages of Soyuz fired to reach a marginal orbit of about 30 x 190 km x 51.6 deg; the third stage reentered over the Pacific at perigee at around 0410 UTC.
• Meanwhile the Fregat stage made a small 50 m/s burn to circularize the orbit, raising perigee to 190 km. After a coast period, Fregat burned again with Fregat/VEX separation at 0511 UTC; Venus Express and Fregat each had a perigee of 344 km and an eccentricity of 1.132, putting them on hyperbolic orbits out of the Earth-Moon system.
• Venus Express passed lunar orbit on Nov 10, 2005 at 1010 UTC and by Nov 24 was in a 0.702 x 0.993 AU orbit around the Sun with an inclination of 0.26 deg to the ecliptic. It will arrive in Venus orbit on 2006 Apr 11 at around 0840 UTC. The first orbit will be around 250 x 326550 km x 89.7 deg. It will arc out to apogee on Apr 15. Manuevers between then and Apr 30 will put it in a 24-hour Venus orbit of 282 x 66911 km x 90.0 deg, synchronizing it with Earth-based tracking stations.
• Once it is captured by Venusian gravity, Venus Express will take 5 days to manoeuvre into its operation orbit, looping around the poles of the planet. At its closest, it will reach an altitude of 250 kilometers and at its furthest, it will be 66 000 kilometers away from the planet. The mapping mission is due to last for 2 Venusian days, about 500 Earth days. The spacecraft will arrived in Venus orbit in mid-April, 2006. The initial orbit will be 89.7 deg, 250-326 550 km and by the end of April the orbit should have been adjusted to 90°, 282-66 911 km.
• Venus Express arrived in orbit around Venus on Apr 11, 2006. The 53-minute orbit insertion burn begain at 0710 UTC and left VEx in a highly elliptical polar orbit around Venus with an apoapsis of 350000 km. Orbit lowering is in progress; as of the final main engine burn scheduled for Apr 23, the orbit was expected to be 257 x 70463 km.
• On Jan 1, 2010 Venus Express continues operating in a 223 x 66589 km x 90.1 deg Venus orbit.
• The European Space Agency's Venus Express probe has concluded its mission. The probe was launched on 2005 Nov 9 and entered Venus orbit on 2006 Apr 11. On Nov 28, 2014 the probe, in a 328 x 63095 km x 89.9 deg polar elliptical orbit around the planet, ran out of propellant and lost attitude control, resulting in loss of contact with Earth (some fragments of telemetry were intermittently received afterwards). With no further orbit raising burns, the probe's pericenter height will drop and the probe will burn up in the Venusian atmosphere early in 2015.