EU space probe orbits Venus.

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European space probe orbits Venus

Agencies
Tuesday April 11, 2006


Artist's image of the Venus Express as it would look when orbiting the planet. Photograph: European Space Agency/PA



A European space probe successfully went into orbit around Venus today following a complicated manoeuvre that saw it temporarily lose contact with its command centre.

Mission controllers cheered and applauded when they learned that the aluminium-framed craft had safely arrived above the boiling hot surface of Earth's nearest planetary neighbour.

The Venus Express lost contact with European Space Agency (ESA) mission controllers in Darmstadt, Germany, for around 10 minutes as it disappeared around the back of the planet.

The manoeuvre - in which the probe's engines were fired for almost an hour to slow it down enough to be caught by Venus's gravitational pull - was likened by one scientist to an interplanetary "handbrake turn".

"It's a fantastic mission for us - we've finally reached Venus," the project manager, Don McCoy, said.

The agency already has the Mars Express probe circling Mars, while a third craft is on its way to land on a comet.

"We've put together a second planetary mission in as short a time as possible," Mr McCoy said. "We've put two satellites around two planets. It's incredible what we've accomplished."

If all goes as planned, Venus Express will slip into a tight, elliptical orbit which will bring it to within 250 miles of Venus's poles.

Its seven instruments, analysing factors such as temperature atmosphere composition, will then be used to try and discover why conditions on the planet are so uniquely inhospitable.

Like Earth, the planet is around the correct distance from the Sun to make life theoretically possible, and has a similar mass and density.

However, it has a crushing atmosphere almost 100 times denser than that of Earth, with clouds of sulphuric acid and a surface temperature hot enough to melt lead.

A key part of the ESA mission will be to study the planet's ultra-strong greenhouse effect - the way in which carbon dioxide traps the sun's heat - to see whether there are any lessons for climate warming on Earth.

Venus Express, which was launched from Kazakhstan by a Russian rocket in November, is intended to stay active for 500 Earth days, slightly over two days on Venus. The mission length could possibly be doubled if necessary.

guardian.co.uk