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The Venera (, , which means "Venus" in Russian) program was the name given to a series of
space probe A space probe is an artificial satellite that travels through space to collect scientific data. A space probe may orbit Earth; approach the Moon; travel through interplanetary space; flyby, orbit, or land or fly on other planetary bodies; o ...
s developed by the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
between 1961 and 1984 to gather information about the planet
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 ...
. Ten probes successfully landed on the surface of the planet, including the two Vega program and Venera-Halley probes, while thirteen probes successfully entered the Venusian atmosphere. Due to the extreme surface conditions on Venus, the probes could only survive for a short period on the surface, with times ranging from 23 minutes to two hours. The ''Venera'' program established a number of precedents in space exploration, among them being the first human-made devices to enter the atmosphere of another planet (
Venera 3 Venera 3 (russian: Венера-3 meaning ''Venus 3'') was a Venera program space probe that was built and launched by the Soviet Union to explore the surface of Venus. It was launched on 16 November 1965 at 04:19 UTC from Baikonur, Kazakhstan ...
on 1 March 1966), the first to make a soft landing on another planet ( Venera 7 on 15 December 1970), the first to return images from another planet's surface ( Venera 9 on 8 June 1975), the first to record sounds on another planet ( Venera 13 on 30 October 1981), and the first to perform high-resolution radar mapping scans ( Venera 15 on 2 June 1983).


The Venera probes


Venera 1 and 2

The first Soviet attempt at a flyby probe to Venus was launched on 4 February 1961, but failed to leave
Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's sur ...
orbit. In keeping with the Soviet policy at that time of not announcing details of failed missions, the launch was announced under the name Tyazhely Sputnik ("Heavy Satellite"). It is also known as Venera 1VA. 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. Venera 1 and Venera 2 were intended to fly past Venus without entering orbit. Venera 1 was launched on 12 February
1961 Events January * January 3 ** United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower announces that the United States has severed diplomatic and consular relations with Cuba (Cuba–United States relations are restored in 2015). ** Aero Flight 311 (K ...
. Telemetry on the probe failed seven days after launch. It is believed to have passed within of Venus and remains in heliocentric orbit. Venera 2 launched on November 12,
1965 Events January–February * January 14 – The Prime Minister of Northern Ireland and the Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland meet for the first time in 43 years. * January 20 ** Lyndon B. Johnson is sworn in for a full term ...
, but also suffered a telemetry failure after leaving Earth orbit. Several other failed attempts at Venus flyby probes were launched by the Soviet Union in the early 1960s,NSSD
Chronology of Venus Exploration
Dave Williams, 28 October 2021, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center; see also NSSD

Dave Williams, 22 February 2022, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
but were not announced as planetary missions at the time, and hence did not officially receive the "Venera" designation.


Venera 3 to 6

The Venera 3 to 6 probes were similar. Weighing approximately one ton, and launched by the Molniya-type booster rocket, they included a cruise "bus" and a spherical atmospheric entry probe. The probes were optimised for atmospheric measurements, but not equipped with any special landing apparatus. Although it was hoped they would reach the surface still functioning, the first probes failed almost immediately, thereby disabling data transmission to Earth.
Venera 3 Venera 3 (russian: Венера-3 meaning ''Venus 3'') was a Venera program space probe that was built and launched by the Soviet Union to explore the surface of Venus. It was launched on 16 November 1965 at 04:19 UTC from Baikonur, Kazakhstan ...
became the first human-made object to impact another planet's surface as it crash-landed on 1 March 1966. However, as the spacecraft's data probes had failed upon atmospheric penetration, no data from within the Venusian atmosphere were retrieved from the mission. On 18 October 1967,
Venera 4 Venera 4 (russian: Венера-4, lit=Venus-4), also designated 4V-1 No.310, was a probe in the Soviet Venera program for the exploration of Venus. The probe comprised a lander, designed to enter the Venusian atmosphere and parachute to the ...
became the first spacecraft to measure the atmosphere of another planet. This spacecraft first showed that the major gas of Venus' atmosphere to be CO2. While the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
initially claimed the craft reached the surface intact, re-analysis, including atmospheric
occultation An occultation is an event that occurs when one object is hidden from the observer by another object that passes between them. The term is often used in astronomy, but can also refer to any situation in which an object in the foreground blocks ...
data from the American
Mariner 5 Mariner 5 (Mariner Venus 1967) was a spacecraft of the Mariner program that carried a complement of experiments to probe Venus' atmosphere by radio occultation, measure the hydrogen Lyman-alpha (hard ultraviolet) spectrum, and sample the sola ...
spacecraft that flew by Venus the day after its arrival, demonstrated that Venus's surface pressure was 75–100 atmospheres, much higher than Venera 4's 25 atm hull strength, and the claim was retracted. Realizing the ships would be crushed before reaching the surface, the Soviets launched
Venera 5 Venera 5 (russian: Венера-5 meaning ''Venus 5'') was a space probe in the Soviet space program ''Venera'' for the exploration of Venus. Venera 5 was launched towards Venus to obtain atmospheric data. The spacecraft was very similar to V ...
and Venera 6 as atmospheric probes. Designed to jettison nearly half their payload prior to entering the planet's atmosphere, these craft recorded 53 and 51 minutes of data, respectively, while slowly descending by parachute before their batteries failed. Around that time it became increasingly known that Venus was unlikely to have liquid bodies of water, however the designs for the Soviet ''Venera'' probes still considered the possibility of a water landing as late as 1964.


Venera 7

The Venera 7 probe, launched in August 1970, was the first one designed to survive Venus's surface conditions and to make a soft landing. Massively overbuilt to ensure survival, it had few experiments on board, and scientific output from the mission was further limited due to an internal switchboard failure that stuck in the "transmit temperature" position. Still, the control scientists succeeded in extrapolating the pressure (90 atm) from the temperature data with , which resulted from the first direct surface measurements. The Doppler measurements of the Venera 4 to 7 probes were the first evidence of the existence of zonal winds with high speeds of up to 100 metres per second (330 ft/s, 362 km/h, 225 mph) in the Venusian atmosphere ( super rotation). Along with the pressure and temperature data acquired Venera 7 also measured atmospheric composition. Venera 7's parachute failed shortly before landing very close to the surface. It impacted at and toppled over, but survived. This caused antenna misalignment making the radio signal very weak, but it was detected (with temperature telemetry) for 23 more minutes before its batteries expired. Thus, it became, on 15 December 1970, the first human-made probe to transmit data from the surface of Venus.


Venera 8

Venera 8, launched in 1972, was equipped with an extended set of scientific instruments for studying the surface (gamma-spectrometer etc.). The cruise bus of Venera 7 and 8 was similar to that of earlier ones, with the design ascending to the Zond 3 mission. The lander transmitted data during the descent and landed in sunlight. It measured the light level but had no camera. It transmitted data for almost an hour.


Venera 9 to 12

Following the failed Kosmos 482, the 1975 Venera 9 and 10 probes and 1978 Venera 11 and 12 probes were of a different design. They weighed approximately five tons and were launched by the powerful
Proton A proton is a stable subatomic particle, symbol , H+, or 1H+ with a positive electric charge of +1 ''e'' elementary charge. Its mass is slightly less than that of a neutron and 1,836 times the mass of an electron (the proton–electron mass ...
booster. They included a transfer and relay bus that had engines to brake into Venus orbit ( Venera 9 and 10, 15 and 16) and to serve as receiver and relay for the entry probe's transmissions. The entry probe was attached to the top of the bus in a spherical heat shield. The probes were optimized for surface operations with an unusual looking design that included a spherical compartment to protect the electronics from atmospheric pressure and heat for as long as possible. Beneath this was a shock absorbing "crush ring" for landing. Above the pressure sphere was a cylindrical antenna structure and a wide dish shaped structure that resembled an antenna but was actually an aerobrake. They were designed to operate on the surface for a minimum of 30 minutes. Instruments varied on different missions, but included cameras and atmospheric and soil analysis equipment. All four landers had problems with some or all of their camera lens caps not releasing. The Venera 9 lander operated for at least 53 minutes and took pictures with one of two cameras; the other lens cap did not release. The
Venera 10 Venera 10 (russian: Венера-10 meaning ''Venus 10''), or 4V-1 No. 661, was a Soviet uncrewed space mission to Venus. It consisted of an orbiter and a lander. It was launched on June 14, 1975, 03:00:31 UTC and had a mass of 5033 kg (1 ...
lander operated for at least 65 minutes and took pictures with one of two cameras; the other lens cap did not release. The Venera 11 lander operated for at least 95 minutes but neither cameras' lens caps released. The Venera 12 lander operated for at least 110 minutes but neither cameras' lens caps released.


Venera 13 and 14

Venera 13 and 14 (1981–82) each had a descent craft/lander that contained most of the instrumentation and electronics, and a flyby spacecraft that was used as a communications relay. The design was similar to the earlier Venera 9–12 landers. They carried instruments to take scientific measurements of the ground and atmosphere once landed, including cameras, a microphone, a drill and surface sampler, and a seismometer. They also had instruments to record electric discharges during its descent phase through the Venusian atmosphere. The two descent craft landed about apart, just east of the eastern extension of an elevated region known as Phoebe Regio. The Venera 13 lander survived for 127 minutes, and the Venera 14 lander for 57 minutes, where the planned design life was only 32 minutes. The Venera 14 craft had the misfortune of ejecting the camera lens cap directly under the surface compressibility tester arm, and returned information for the compressibility of the lens cap rather than the surface. The descent vehicles transmitted data to the buses, which acted as data relays as they flew by Venus.


Venera 15 and 16

The 1983
Venera 15 and 16 Venera 4V-2 (russian: Венера 4В-2) was a series of two identical spacecraft sent to Venus by the Soviet Union, consisting of Venera 15 and Venera 16. Both unmanned orbiters were to map the surface of Venus using high resolution imaging syste ...
spacecraft were orbiter missions; similar to previous probes, but the entry probes were replaced with surface imaging radar equipment. Radar imaging was necessary to penetrate the dense cloud of Venus and both missions included identical synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and radio altimeter systems. The SAR system was crucial in the mapping efforts of the mission and featured an 8 month operational tour to capture Venus's surface at a resolution of 1 to 2 kilometers (0.6 to 1.2 miles). When the system was switched to radio altimeter mode the antenna operated at wavelength band of 8 centimeters to send and receive signals off of the Venusian surface over a period of 0.67 milliseconds. The results were a detailed map of the reflectivity distribution over the surface of the Venusian Northern Hemisphere. The linear distance the measurements were taken ranged from 91 to 182 kilometers. The twin Soviet spacecraft flew in near-polar elliptical orbits and succeeded in mapping the top half of the northern atmosphere (from the north pole to 30 degrees N latitude, about 115 million square kilometers or 71 million square miles) by the end of the main mission. An altimeter provided topographical data with a height resolution of 50 m (164 feet), and an East German instrument mapped surface temperature variations.


VeGa probes

The
VeGa Vega is the brightest star in the northern constellation of Lyra. It has the Bayer designation α Lyrae, which is Latinised to Alpha Lyrae and abbreviated Alpha Lyr or α Lyr. This star is relatively close at only from the Sun, a ...
(Cyrillic: ВеГа) probes to Venus and comet 1/P Halley launched in 1984 also used this basic Venera design, including landers but also atmospheric balloons which relayed data for about two days. "VeGa" is an agglutination of the words "Venera" (
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 ...
in Russian) and "Gallei" (
Halley Halley may refer to: Science * Halley's Comet, officially designated 1P/Halley, a comet that becomes visible from Earth every 75-76 years * Halley (lunar crater), a lunar crater named after Edmond Halley * Halley (Martian crater), a Martian cra ...
in Russian).


Future


Venera-D

Venera-D is a proposed mission to Venus that would include a highly capable orbiter and a lander. From the standpoint of total mass delivered to Venus, the best launch opportunities occur in 2026 and 2031;Development of the Venera-D Mission Concept, from Science Objectives to Mission architecture.
49th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference 2018 (LPI Contrib. No. 2083).
however, as of March 2021, Venera-D is planned for launch no earlier than November 2029. Venera-D could incorporate some NASA components, including balloons, a subsatellite for plasma measurements, or a long-lived (24 hours) surface station on the lander.


Scientific findings

There were many scientific findings from the data retrieved by the Venera probes making them pivotal in our understanding of Venus. The Venera probes provided direct data regarding Venus' surface and atmosphere while also providing important information on electronics lifetime under Venus conditions. Venera 4 was the first successful probe, and showed that CO2 is the main component in Venus' atmosphere. Papers from the Second Arizona Conference on Planetary Atmospheres, previously published in Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences; Mariner 5 reports, previously published in Science; and selected post-conference reports. Venera 7 found the temperature and pressure data as well as the atmospheric composition. Venera 8 measured the K, U, and Th on the surface through gamma-ray analysis. Venera 9 provided the first images of the surface of Venus as well as more gamma-ray analysis. By sending the first images of Venus' surface back to Earth the Venera missions provided scientists with the ability to relay the achievements with the public. Venera 13 provided the first color images and X-ray fluorescence data of the surface of the planet. After analyzing the radar images returned from Venera 15 and 16, it was concluded that the ridges and grooves on the surface of Venus were the result of
tectonic Tectonics (; ) are the processes that control the structure and properties of the Earth's crust and its evolution through time. These include the processes of mountain building, the growth and behavior of the strong, old cores of continents ...
deformations. This was found by radar imaging while in orbit. Even with their short lifetimes, the Venera missions each added significant understanding of our sister planet.


Types of Venera probes


Flight data for all Venera missions


See also

* * * * * *


References


External links


The Soviet Exploration of VenusThe Soviets and Venus by Larry Klaes, 1993
{{Venus spacecraft