Venus Express
Venus Express was ESA's first mission to orbit Venus. The spacecraft investigated atmospheric structure and chemistry, cloud dynamics, plasma interactions, surface emissivity, and links between the atmosphere and surface from an elliptical near-polar orbit, later using a low-altitude campaign to demonstrate aerobraking and sample the upper atmosphere.
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Identity
- Aliases
- VEX
- Name
- Venus Express
- Status
- completed
Details
- Astronauts
- -
- Description
- Venus Express was ESA's first mission to orbit Venus. The spacecraft investigated atmospheric structure and chemistry, cloud dynamics, plasma interactions, surface emissivity, and links between the atmosphere and surface from an elliptical near-polar orbit, later using a low-altitude campaign to demonstrate aerobraking and sample the upper atmosphere.
- End Date
- 2014-12-16
- Launch Site
- Outcome
- Venus Express exceeded its planned lifetime, operated around Venus for more than eight years, and produced major atmospheric, plasma, and surface results. Propellant exhaustion ended orbit-raising attempts after the 2014 aerobraking campaign; ESA closed the mission on December 16, 2014 and the orbit later decayed into the atmosphere.
- Start Date
- 2005-11-09
- Vehicle Families
Links
Assets & Meta
- Creation Time
- July 30, 2026 at 03:14:05 UTC
- Updated Time
- July 30, 2026 at 03:14:05 UTC
Other
- Affiliations
- Programs
- -
- Space Stations
- -
- Vehicles