Venus flyer to trap planetary data

Europe's first space mission to Venus was successfully launched last Wednesday to begin its five-month journey to study Earth’s closest neighbour. ESA’s Venus Express spacecraft took off from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on a Russian Soyuz rocket.

Mission control based in Darmstadt, Germany had to wait two hours before it received the first signals from the spacecraft to show that it was operating as planned.

Venus Express will orbit Venus for around 500 days, with the option of a further 500 days if all goes to plan, and will take scientific readings designed to find out more about the planet’s strange atmosphere.

Based on the design of the Mars Express probe which began orbiting the red planet last Christmas, the new spacecraft was built for ESA by a European industrial team led by EADS Astrium with 25 main contractors spread across 14 countries.

However, environmental conditions around Venus are very different from those around Mars. Solar flux is four times higher so Venus Express had to be adapted to cope with this hotter environment, which involved a new thermal insulation design.