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Venus Express' Mission Ends


Waspie_Dwarf

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Venus Express goes gently into the night

16 December 2014 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 low-altitude aerobraking earlier this year.

Since its arrival at Venus in 2006, Venus Express had been on an elliptical 24-hour orbit, traveling 66,000 km above the south pole at its furthest point and to within 200 km over the north pole on its closest approach, conducting a detailed study of the planet and its atmosphere.

However, after eight years in orbit and with propellant for its propulsion system running low, Venus Express was tasked in mid-2014 with a daring aerobraking campaign, during which it dipped progressively lower into the atmosphere on its closest approaches to the planet.

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  • Waspie_Dwarf

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  • bison

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One of the more interesting facts that this mission learned is that Venus must once have had extensive oceans. They reasoned this out after examining the planet's deuterium isotope ratio of hydrogen. Link to article mentioning this discovery, below:

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/venus-express-mission-ends-12242014/

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