The European Venus Explorer (EVE), known until 2007 as the Venus Entry Probe (VEP), is a proposed European Space Agency space probe to

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 the timeline of the 2005 TRS (technology reference study), the spacecraft was proposed to be launched on a

Soyuz-2 Soyuz-2 ( GRAU index 14A14) is a modernized version of the Soviet Soyuz rocket. In its basic form, it is a three-stage launch vehicle for placing payloads into low Earth orbit. Compared to the previous versions of the Soyuz, the first-stage ...

Fregat Fregat (russian: Фрегат, ''frigate'') is an upper stage developed by NPO Lavochkin in the 1990s, which is used in some Soyuz and Zenit launch vehicles, but is universal and can be used as a part of a medium and heavy class launch vehic ...

launch vehicle around 2013.ESA description of the ''VEP'' technology reference study
/ref> However, requests to fund and develop the spacecraft in 2007 and 2010 were rejected.
/ref> EVE was a Medium-Class mission proposal in the

Cosmic Vision Cosmic Vision is the third campaign of space science and space exploration missions in the Science Programme of the European Space Agency (ESA). Formulated in 2005 as ''Cosmic Vision: Space Science for Europe 2015–2025'', the campaign succee ...

programme. The mission concept consisted of an orbiter and balloon which would circumnavigate the planet over the course of one week, and a lander probe which would operate for approximately one hour on the surface.

Overview

The mission concept calls for two satellites: the Venus Polar Orbiter (VPO), for remote sensing of the atmospheric, and the Venus Elliptical Orbiter (VEO), which deploys the entry probe from a highly elliptical orbit. The entry probe would contain a balloon-aerobot which floats in benign conditions at 55 km altitude in the middle cloud layer, and would drop up to 15 microprobes into the lower atmosphere.

References

External links

ESA - Venus Entry Probe
- an atmospheric probe
Contractor for the SSTL/ESA – Venus Entry Probe study

Missions to Venus European Space Agency space probes Orbiters (space probe) Proposed space probes {{Europe-spacecraft-stub