The 5VK planetary probe (short for 5th-generation Venus-Comet probe) is a designation for a common design used for
Soviet
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
unmanned
probes to comet
1P/Halley
Halley's Comet is the only known List of periodic comets, short-period comet that is consistently visible to the naked eye from Earth, appearing every 72–80 years, though with the majority of recorded apparitions (25 of 30) occurring after ...
and
Venus
Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is often called Earth's "twin" or "sister" planet for having almost the same size and mass, and the closest orbit to Earth's. While both are rocky planets, Venus has an atmosphere much thicker ...
.
It was an incremental improvement of earlier
4MV
The 4MV planetary probe (short for 4th-generation Mars-Venus probe) is a designation for a common design used for Soviet unmanned probes to Mars and Venus.
It was an incremental improvement of earlier 3MV probes and was used for Mars missions 2 ...
probes used for
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", because of its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous carbon dioxide () atmosphere. At the average surface level the atmosph ...
and Venus missions.
Design
The craft was
three-axis stabilized
Spacecraft attitude control is the process of controlling the orientation of a spacecraft (vehicle or satellite) with respect to an inertial frame of reference or another entity such as the celestial sphere, certain fields, and nearby objects, ...
and powered by twin large solar panels, weighing 4,920 kg (10,850 lb). They were equipped with a dual bumper shield for dust protection from Halley's comet. Instruments included an antenna dish, cameras,
spectrometer
A spectrometer () is a scientific instrument used to separate and measure Spectrum, spectral components of a physical phenomenon. Spectrometer is a broad term often used to describe instruments that measure a continuous variable of a phenomeno ...
, infrared sounder,
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, ...
s, and plasma probes.
Variants
*
Vega 1
Vega 1 (along with its twin Vega 2) was a Soviet space probe, part of the Vega program. The spacecraft was a development of the earlier ''Venera'' craft. They were designed by Babakin Space Centre and constructed as 5VK by Lavochkin at Khim ...
(5VK No.901)
*
Vega 2
Vega 2 (along with Vega 1) was a Soviet space probe part of the Vega program to explore Halley's comet and Venus. The spacecraft was a development of the earlier '' Venera'' craft. The name VeGa (ВеГа) combines the first two letters of the R ...
(5VK No.902)
See also
*
Soviet space program
The Soviet space program () was the state space program of the Soviet Union, active from 1951 until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Contrary to its competitors (NASA in the United States, the European Space Agency in Western Euro ...
*
Vega program
Vega is the brightest star in the northern constellation of Lyra. It has the Bayer designation α Lyrae, which is Latinisation of names, Latinised to Alpha Lyrae and abbreviated Alpha Lyr or α Lyr. This star is List of star systems wi ...
*
4MV
The 4MV planetary probe (short for 4th-generation Mars-Venus probe) is a designation for a common design used for Soviet unmanned probes to Mars and Venus.
It was an incremental improvement of earlier 3MV probes and was used for Mars missions 2 ...
References
Soviet Venus missions
Soviet space probes
{{USSR space probes