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Research: Space and Atmospheric Physics

Imperial College Venus Express Home Page

Venus Express is the first European Space Agency (ESA) mission to visit Earth's nearest planetary neighbour.

Venus Express

  • Launched: 9 November 2005 (Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan)
  • Venus Transfer: 5 month interplanetary cruise followed by gravity-capture into Venus orbit.
  • Orbit: 24-hour polar orbit. Apocentre altitude (minimum height above the planet surface) 250 kilometres. Pericentre altitude 66 000 kilometres.
  • Mission Duration:The nominal mission duration is 500 Earth days (about 2 Venus years). In February 2007 the ESA member states agreed an extension of the mission to May 2009.
  • Imperial College Involvement: The Space Magnetometer Laboratory provided part of the instrument and will contribute to data processing and science during the mission.
  • Supporting Investigator team: The team will link magnetic field and plasma in-situ data with remote sensing observations, laboratory spectroscopy and modelling work. 
  • Data Products: The magnetometer instrument produces vector measurements of the magnetic field at a minimum rate of 1 sample per second. For specific studies, the data rate can be increased up to 64 samples per second.

Mission Summary

An Artist's Impression of the Spacecraft at Venus

An Artists's Impression of the Spacecraft at Venus (picture credit: ESA )

The mission was selected in 2001 from a number of different proposals, all of which copied the design of the Mars Express spacecraft. In doing so, ESA was able to build Venus Express in a very short time, at a relatively low cost, and use many of the science instrument designs developed for Mars Express or the Rosetta mission. The spacecraft was launched in November 2005.

Venus is often referred to as the Earth's twin. It is our nearest planetary neighbour, it is of similar size and mass, and made from the same basic material when the solar system formed 4.5 billion years ago. However, Earth and Venus have evolved in markedly different ways. The surface temperature at Venus can be nearly 500 degrees Centigrade, and the atmosphere is 96% Carbon-dioxide with clouds of Sulphuric acid.


External Links

ESA Venus Express Website | STFC

MAG pages at Institut für Weltraumforschung (IWF) Graz 

Imperial College participation in the Venus Express mission is funded by the UK Science & Technology Facilities Council.