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The Venus Express
spacecraft Credit: ESA/C.Carreau |
Venus Express
en route to probe the planet's hidden mysteries
The European spacecraft Venus Express has been successfully placed into
a trajectory that will take it on its journey from the Earth towards its
destination of the planet Venus, which it will reach next April.
A virtual twin sister of the Mars Express spacecraft which has been
orbiting the Red Planet since December 2003, Venus Express is the second
planet-bound probe to be launched by the European Space Agency.
Venus Express will eventually manoeuvre itself into orbit around Venus
in order to perform a detailed study of the structure, chemistry and dynamics
of the planet's atmosphere, which is characterised by extremely high temperatures,
very high atmospheric pressure, a huge greenhouse effect and as-yet inexplicable
"super-rotation" which means that it speeds around the planet
in just four days. The European spacecraft will also be the first orbiter
to probe the planet's surface while exploiting the "visibility windows"
recently discovered in the infrared waveband.
The 1240 kg mass spacecraft was developed for ESA by a European industrial
team led by EADS Astrium with 25 main contractors spread across 14 countries.
It lifted off onboard a Soyuz-Fregat rocket, the launch service being
provided by Starsem. The lift-off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakstan
this morning took place at 09:33 hours local time (04:33 Central European
Time). Initial Fregat upper-stage ignition took place 9 minutes into the
flight, manoeuvring the spacecraft into a low-earth parking orbit. A second
firing, 1 hour 22 minutes later, boosted the spacecraft to pursue its
interplanetary trajectory.
Contact with Venus Express was established by ESA's European Space Operations
Centre (ESOC) at Darmstadt, Germany approximately two hours after lift-off.
The spacecraft has correctly oriented itself in relation to the sun and
has deployed its solar arrays. All onboard systems are operating perfectly
and the orbiter is communicating with the Earth via its low-gain antenna.
In three days' time, it will establish communications using its high-gain
antenna.
Full speed ahead for Venus
Venus Express is currently distancing itself from the Earth full speed,
heading on its five-month 350 million kilometre journey inside our solar
system. After check-outs to ensure that its onboard equipment and instrument
payload are in proper working order, the spacecraft will be mothballed,
with contact with the Earth being reduced to once daily. If needed, trajectory
correction manoeuvres can go ahead at the half-way stage in January.
When making its closest approach, Venus Express will face far tougher
conditions than those encountered by Mars Express on nearing the Red Planet.
For while Venus's size is indeed similar to that of the Earth, its mass
is 7.6 times that of Mars, with gravitational attraction to match. To
resist this greater gravitational pull, the spacecraft will have to ignite
its main engine for 53 minutes in order to achieve 1.3 km/second deceleration
and place itself into a highly elliptical orbit around the planet. Most
of its 570 kg of propellant will be used for this manoeuvre.
A second engine firing will be necessary in order to reach final operational
orbit: a polar elliptical orbit with 12-hour crossings. This will enable
the probe to make approaches to within 250 km of the planet's surface
and withdraw to distances of up to 66 000 km, so as to carry out close-up
observations and also get an overall perspective.
Exploring other planets to better understand planet Earth "The launch
of Venus Express is a further illustration of Europe's determination to
study the various bodies in our solar system", stressed Professor
David Southwood, the Director of ESA's science programmes. "We started
in 2003 with the launch of Mars Express to the Red Planet and Smart-1
to the Moon and both these missions have amply exceeded our expectations.
Venus Express marks a further step forward, with a view to eventually
rounding off our initial overview of our immediate planetary neighbours
with the BepiColombo mission to Mercury to be launched in 2013."
"With Venus Express, we fully intend to demonstrate yet again that
studying the planets is of vital importance for life here on Earth",
said Jean Jacques Dordain, ESA Director General. "To understand climate
change on Earth and all the contributing factors, we cannot make do with
solely observing our own planet. We need to decipher the mechanics of
the planetary atmosphere in general terms. With Mars Express, we are studying
the Martian atmosphere. With Huygens, we have explored that of Saturn's
satellite Titan. And now with Venus Express, we are going to add a further
specimen to our collection. Originally, Venus and the Earth must have
been very similar planets. So we really do need to understand why and
how they eventually diverged to the point that one became a cradle for
life while the other developed into a hostile environment."
The Venus Express mission is planned to last at least two Venusian days
(486 Earth days) and may be extended, depending on the spacecraft's operational
state of health.
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| Evening view of Venus Express during launch dress
rehearsal. Credits: ESA |
Twin sister of
Mars Express
Venus Express largely reuses the architecture developed for Mars Express.
This has reduced manufacturing cycles and halved the mission cost, while
still targeting the same scientific goals.
Finally approved in late 2002, Venus Express was thereby developed fast,
indeed in record time, to be ready for its 2005 launch window.
However, Venusian environmental conditions are very different to those
encountered around Mars. Solar flux is four times higher and it has been
necessary to adapt the spacecraft design to this hotter environment, notably
by entirely redesigning the thermal insulation. Whereas Mars Express sought
to retain heat to enable its electronics to function properly, Venus Express
will in contrast be aiming for maximum heat dissipation in order to stay
cool.
The solar arrays on Venus Express have been completely redesigned. They
are shorter and are interspersed with aluminium strips to help reject
some solar flux to protect the spacecraft from temperatures topping 250ºC.
It has even been necessary to protect the rear of the solar arrays –
which normally remain in shadow – in order to counter heat from
solar radiation reflected by the planet's atmosphere.
An atmosphere of mystery
Following on from the twenty or so American and Soviet missions to the
planet carried out since 1962, Venus Express will endeavour to answer
many of the questions raised by previous missions but so far left unanswered.
It will focus on the characteristics of the atmosphere, its circulation,
structure and composition in relation to altitude, and its interactions
with the planet's surface and with the solar wind at altitude.
To perform these studies, it has seven instruments onboard: three are
flight-spare units of instruments already flown on Mars Express, two are
from comet-chaser Rosetta and two were designed specifically for this
mission.
The PFS high-resolution spectrometer will measure atmospheric temperature
and composition at varying altitudes. It will also measure surface temperature
and search for signs of current volcanic activity. The SPICAV/SOIR infrared
& ultraviolet spectrometer and the VeRa instrument will also probe
the atmosphere, observing stellar occultation and detecting radio signals;
the former will in particular seek to detect molecules of water, oxygen
and sulphuric compounds thought to be present in the atmosphere. The Virtis
spectrometer will map the various layers of the atmosphere and conduct
multi-wavelength cloud observation in order to provide images of atmospheric
dynamics.
Assisted by a magnetometer, the ASPERA 4 instrument will analyse interaction
between the upper atmosphere and the solar wind in the absence of magnetospheric
protection such as that surrounding the Earth (for Venus had no magnetic
field). It will analyse the plasma generated by such interaction, while
the magnetometer will study the magnetic field generated by the plasma.
And the VMC camera will monitor the planet in four wavelengths, notably
exploiting one of the "infrared windows" revealed in 1990 by
the Galileo spacecraft (when flying by Venus en route for Jupiter), making
it possible to penetrate cloud cover through to the surface. The camera
will also be used to monitor atmospheric dynamics, notably to observe
the double atmospheric vortex at the poles, the origin of which still
remains a mystery.
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