Next stop, Venus

Today, I had to wake up early, about 2am, and drove for about 30min. I attended the live broadcast on ESA TV of the launch of the Venus Express satellite. The event took place at the SpaceExpo in Noordwijk (the Netherlands). Before the launch, we got a very intersting presentation of what Venus Express is and what are its objectives.

The name "Express" of this probe makes reference to the short time that has taken from the concept to the launch. It all hapened in about 3 years, thanks to the work previously done for its cousin satellite Mars Express. These two satellites share many structural and functional details.

The blast off happened at 4.33h CET. The Soyuz-Fregat rocket lifted "effortlessly" the Venus Express to a parking orbit. In this circular orbit the Fregat orbital vehicle accelerated the satellite and pushed it off the orbit in direction to Venus. About 5 months from now, Venus Express will arrive its destination.

The main objective of Venus Express is to study the atmosphere and surface of Venus. There are lots of secrets hidden under the dense Venus atmosphere. It is so thick that on the surface there is a pressure of about 90 bars, thats like diving thousand meters in the see. But the pressure is a minor detail because the temperature of about 450 ºC (as hot as a pizza oven) could turn you into ashes in a few of minutes.

Venus Express is not the first satellite to visit Venus. Russian and USA satellites and probes have tried to unveil Venus secrets since early 70s. The most important contribution was from the Magellan satellite launched by NASA in early 90s, which provided us with impressive radar images of Venus surface. however, the Venus Express mission has some remarkable aspects:

• It is the first ESA mission to Venus.
• It has taken a fairly short time from the mission concept to launch. This is why it is called "Express". This could be achieved by reusing much of the Mars Express design.
• The mission will make intensive use of the new ESA antenna located at Cebreros (Ávila, Spain).

Go Venus Express, go.