''Venera 1'' ( meaning ''Venus 1''), also known as Venera-1VA No.2 and occasionally in the West as ''Sputnik 8'', was the first spacecraft to perform an interplanetary flight and the first to fly past

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 ...

, as part of the

Soviet Union 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 ...

Venera The Venera (, 'Venus') program was a series of space probes developed by the Soviet Union between 1961 and 1984 to gather information about the planet Venus. Thirteen probes successfully entered the Venusian atmosphere, including the two ...

programme. Launched in February 1961, it was intended as an impactor, but flew past Venus on 19 May of the same year; however, radio contact with the probe was lost before the flyby, resulting in it returning no data.

Spacecraft

''Venera 1'' was a probe consisting of a cylindrical body in diameter topped by a dome, totalling in height. This was pressurized to with dry nitrogen, with internal fans to maintain even distribution of heat. Two solar panels extended from the cylinder, charging a bank of

silver-zinc batteries A silver zinc battery is a secondary cell that utilizes silver(I,III) oxide and zinc. Overview Silver zinc cells share most of the characteristics of the silver-oxide battery, and in addition, is able to deliver one of the highest specific energy, ...

. A parabolic wire-mesh antenna was designed to send data from Venus to Earth on a frequency of 922.8 MHz. A antenna boom was used to transmit short-wave signals during the near-Earth phase of the mission. Semidirectional

quadrupole A quadrupole or quadrapole is one of a sequence of configurations of things like electric charge or current, or gravitational mass that can exist in ideal form, but it is usually just part of a multipole expansion of a more complex structure re ...

antennas mounted on the solar panels provided routine telemetry and telecommand contact with Earth during the mission, on a circularly-polarized decimetre radio band. The probe was equipped with scientific instruments including a flux-gate

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, ...

attached to the antenna boom, two

ion trap An ion trap is a combination of electric field, electric and/or magnetic fields used to capture charged particles — known as ions — often in a system isolated from an external environment. Atomic and molecular ion traps have a number of a ...

s to measure solar wind, micrometeorite detectors, and

Geiger counter A Geiger counter (, ; also known as a Geiger–Müller counter or G-M counter) is an electronic instrument for detecting and measuring ionizing radiation with the use of a Geiger–Müller tube. It is widely used in applications such as radiat ...

tubes and a sodium iodide

scintillator A scintillator ( ) is a material that exhibits scintillation, the property of luminescence, when excited by ionizing radiation. Luminescent materials, when struck by an incoming particle, absorb its energy and scintillate (i.e. re-emit the ab ...

for measurement of cosmic radiation. An experiment attached to one solar panel measured temperatures of experimental coatings. Infrared and/or ultraviolet radiometers may have been included. The dome contained a KDU-414 engine used for mid-course corrections. Temperature control was achieved by motorized thermal shutters. During most of its flight, ''Venera 1'' was spin stabilized. It was the first spacecraft designed to perform mid-course corrections, by entering a mode of 3-axis stabilization, fixing on the Sun and the star

Canopus Canopus is the brightest star in the southern constellation of Carina (constellation), Carina and the list of brightest stars, second-brightest star in the night sky. It is also Bayer designation, designated α Carinae, which is Rom ...

. Had it reached Venus, it would have entered another mode of 3-axis stabilization, fixing on the

Sun The Sun is the star at the centre of the Solar System. It is a massive, nearly perfect sphere of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core, radiating the energy from its surface mainly as visible light a ...

and

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...

, and using for the first time a parabolic antenna to relay data.

Launch

''Venera 1'' was the second of two attempts to launch a probe to Venus in February 1961, immediately following the launch of its sister ship ''Venera-1VA No.1'',NSSD
Chronology of Venus Exploration
(NASA Goddard Space Center), accessed August 9, 2010 which failed to leave Earth orbit due to the failure of a power transformer. The transformer was wrapped in foil and painted black and white for thermal reasons.NSSD

(NASA Goddard Space Center), accessed August 9, 2010 Soviet experts launched Venera-1 using a Molniya carrier rocket from the

Baikonur Cosmodrome The Baikonur Cosmodrome is a spaceport operated by Russia within Kazakhstan. Located in the Kazakh city of Baikonur, it is the largest operational space launch facility in terms of area. All Russian Human spaceflight, crewed spaceflights are l ...

. The launch took place at 00:34:36 GMT on 12 February 1961. Vehicle L1-6V steered downrange into a clear blue winter sky and orbit was successfully achieved. The spacecraft, along with the rocket's Blok-L upper stage, was initially placed into a

low Earth orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an geocentric orbit, orbit around Earth with a orbital period, period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an orbital eccentricity, eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial object ...

, before the upper stage fired to place "Venera 1" into a

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 ...

, directed towards Venus. The 11D33 engine was the world's first staged-combustion-cycle rocket engine, and also the first use of an ullage engine to allow a liquid-fuel rocket engine to start in space.

Failure

During the first telemetry session, it was found that Venera 1 failed to enter the constant solar orientation mode, which led to a shortage of electrical power on board. While unfortunate, this was expected and in such a case the station had to conduct a rough orientation to the Sun and turn off non-vital systems. However, the radio transmitters had not been adequately designed and communication was shortly lost. The signal was regained on 17 February but it was still unable to lock onto the Sun properly and again went into protective mode and turned off the transmitter. Three successful telemetry sessions were conducted, gathering solar-wind and cosmic-ray data near Earth, at the Earth's

magnetopause The magnetopause is the abrupt boundary between a magnetosphere and the surrounding Plasma (physics), plasma. For planetary science, the magnetopause is the boundary between the planet's magnetic field and the solar wind. The location of the ma ...

, and on February 19 at a distance of . After discovering the

solar wind The solar wind is a stream of charged particles released from the Sun's outermost atmospheric layer, the Stellar corona, corona. This Plasma (physics), plasma mostly consists of electrons, protons and alpha particles with kinetic energy betwee ...

with ''Luna 2'', ''Venera 1'' provided the first verification that this plasma was uniformly present in deep space. Seven days later, the next scheduled telemetry session failed to occur. On May 19, 1961, ''Venera 1'' passed within of Venus. With the help of the British radio telescope at

Jodrell Bank Jodrell Bank Observatory ( ) in Cheshire, England hosts a number of radio telescopes as part of the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Manchester. The observatory was established in 1945 by Bernard Lovell, a radio astron ...

, some weak signals from ''Venera 1'' may have been detected in June. Soviet engineers believed that ''Venera 1'' failed due to the overheating of a solar-direction sensor.

References

External links

The Soviet Exploration of VenusNSSDC Master Catalog – ''Venera 1''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Venera 01 Venera program Spacecraft launched in 1961 Derelict space probes Derelict satellites in heliocentric orbit 1961 in the Soviet Union 1MV

Spacecraft

Launch

Failure

See also

References

External links