Video from space: Orbiting with Venus Express
The movie below is based on actual images snapped by the Venus Monitoring Camera over a period of 18 hours during one of the spacecraft’s 24-hour orbits around the planet, 7–8 January 2012. It was...
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Science during aerobraking
Today’s post highlights the continuation of science data gathering during the demanding aerobraking campaign, which formally gets underway today. This was contributed by Donald Merritt, the Venus...
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Aerobraking starts today – Update 17:00CEST
UPDATE 17:00CEST Adam writes: Since the atmosphere is not as dense as was feared, we are planning a small manoeuvre next week to further lower the pericentre altitude by between 2 and 3 km. This...
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Venus Express enters an unknown realm
Operations team lowers altitude of pericentre passage Today’s blog post was contributed by Colin Wilson at the Dept. of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics, Oxford University, with inputs from...
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Aerobraking update
Venus Express completed the 38th aerobraking orbit on 25 June with pericentre passage expected to have occurred at 21:37:04z; the spacecraft was in braking mode between 19:59:05z and 21:54:05z. The...
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Hotter and hotter
The post below was contributed by Colin Wilson at the Dept. of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics, Oxford University, with inputs from the operations team at ESOC. Colin is Venus Express...
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Venus Express goes even lower
Update contributed by the VEX team – Ed. Here’s the latest plot showing the lowest altitudes reached by Venus Express on each of its aerobraking orbits. Yesterday morning, 2 July, the spacecraft...
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The hottest, bumpiest week yet for Venus Express
Today’s post was submitted by Colin Wilson, Venus Express science operations coordinator. Venus Express is now in the final week of its aerobraking campaign, and is about as low as it’s going to get....
View ArticleESAHangout: Venus Express mission experts answer your aerobraking questions
After eight years in orbit, ESA’s Venus Express has completed routine science observations and has spent the last month orbiting through the planet’s hostile atmosphere. Join Venus Express mission...
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Venus Express rises again
Venus Express aerobraking Credit: ESA After a month surfing in and out of the atmosphere of Venus down to below 130 km from the planet’s surface, Venus Express has embarked on a 15 day climb up to...
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Venus Express aerobraking: quick update 18 July
Venus Express aerobraking Credit: ESA Today’s update on the orbit raising manoeuvres of Venus Express, following the aerobraking campaign, is provided by acting spacecraft operations manager Joerg...
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Venus Express: Final orbit manoeuvre complete
This note sent in by Jörg Fischer, Acting Venus Express Spacecraft Operations Manager at ESOC. Note that a full article will be posted in the main ESA website within a couple work days. – Ed. I am...
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Venus Express will raise orbit and keep going
Between 23 and 30 November the operations team at ESOC will conduct manoeuvres to raise the pericentre of the Venus Express (VEX) orbit again, in an effort to keep the spacecraft in productive orbit...
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Venus Express anomaly
(Updated 08.12 with additional clarifications from the operations team) On 28 November 2014, the flight control team at ESOC reported lack of contact with Venus Express at the first opportunity for...
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Venus Express goes gently into the night
ESA’s Venus Express has ended its eight-year mission after far exceeding its planned life. The spacecraft exhausted its propellant during a series of thruster burns to raise its orbit following the...
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Tracking a ghost mission 238 million km away
On 16 December, ESA’s hugely successful Venus Express mission came to an end after it exhausting its remaining propellant as of 28 November (see “Venus Express goes gently into the night“)....
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Update on VEX carrier monitoring 22:00 CET
ESA’s 35m deep-space tracking station, Cebreros, Spain. Credit: ESA As we described last Friday, the operations team at ESOC are able to continue monitoring radio signals from Venus Express; they can...
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Venus Express: the last shout
This update sent in earlier today by Rick Blake, Spacecraft Operations Engineer at ESOC working on the Venus Express mission. This will be our final operational VEX update, unless anything changes....
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