Venera 2 (russian: Венера-2 meaning ''Venus 2''), also known as 3MV-4 No.4 was a

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

spacecraft intended to explore

Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never f ...

. A 3MV-4 spacecraft launched as part of the Venera programme, it failed to return data after flying past Venus. Venera 2 was launched by a Molniya carrier rocket, flying from Site 31/6 at the

Baikonur Cosmodrome ''Baiqoñyr ğaryş ailağy'' rus, Космодром Байконур''Kosmodrom Baykonur'' , image = Baikonur Cosmodrome Soyuz launch pad.jpg , caption = The Baikonur Cosmodrome's "Gagarin's Start" Soyuz ...

. The launch occurred at 05:02 UTC on 12 November 1965, with the first three stages placing the spacecraft and Blok-L upper stage into a low Earth

parking orbit A parking orbit is a temporary orbit used during the launch of a spacecraft. A launch vehicle boosts into the parking orbit, then coasts for a while, then fires again to enter the final desired trajectory. The alternative to a parking orbit is ''di ...

before the Blok-L fired to propel Venera 2 into

heliocentric orbit A heliocentric orbit (also called circumsolar orbit) is an orbit around the barycenter of the Solar System, which is usually located within or very near the surface of the Sun. All planets, comets, and asteroids in the Solar System, and the Sun ...

bound for Venus, with

perihelion An apsis (; ) is the farthest or nearest point in the orbit of a planetary body about its primary body. For example, the apsides of the Earth are called the aphelion and perihelion. General description There are two apsides in any elli ...

of 0.716 AU,

aphelion An apsis (; ) is the farthest or nearest point in the orbit of a planetary body about its primary body. For example, the apsides of the Earth are called the aphelion and perihelion. General description There are two apsides in any ell ...

of 1.197 AU, eccentricity of 0.252,

inclination Orbital inclination measures the tilt of an object's orbit around a celestial body. It is expressed as the angle between a reference plane and the orbital plane or axis of direction of the orbiting object. For a satellite orbiting the Ea ...

of 4.29 degrees and

orbital period The orbital period (also revolution period) is the amount of time a given astronomical object takes to complete one orbit around another object. In astronomy, it usually applies to planets or asteroids orbiting the Sun, moons orbiting pla ...

of 341 days. The Venera 2 spacecraft was equipped with cameras, as well as a

magnetometer A magnetometer is a device that measures magnetic field or magnetic dipole moment. Different types of magnetometers measure the direction, strength, or relative change of a magnetic field at a particular location. A compass is one such device, ...

, solar and cosmic x-ray detectors, piezoelectric detectors, ion traps, a

Geiger counter A Geiger counter (also known as a Geiger–Müller counter) is an electronic instrument used for detecting and measuring ionizing radiation. It is widely used in applications such as radiation dosimetry, radiological protection, experimental p ...

and receivers to measure cosmic radio emissions. The spacecraft made its closest approach to Venus at 02:52 UTC on 27 February 1966, at a distance of . During the flyby, all of Venera 2's instruments were activated, requiring that radio contact with the spacecraft be suspended. The probe was to have stored data using onboard recorders, and then transmitted it to Earth once contact was restored. Following the flyby the spacecraft failed to reestablish communications with the ground. It was declared lost on 4 March 1966. An investigation into the failure determined that the spacecraft had overheated due to a radiator malfunction.

References

Spacecraft launched in 1965 1965 in the Soviet Union Venera program Derelict satellites in heliocentric orbit 3MV {{USSR-spacecraft-stub

See also

References