Venera 11
Launched: September 9 1978
Reached Destination: December 25 1978
Type: Flyby/Lander
Nationality: Soviet (Russian)
Results: Catalogued gamma-ray bursts for the first time; studied the temperature, soil and atmospheric composition (soil analyser failed however), detected lightning on Venus for the first time.
Photographs Taken: Unknown
Mission Ended: February 1980
Termination of Probe: In heliocentric orbit
Venera 12
Launched: September 14 1978
Reached Destination: December 21 1978
Type: Flyby/Lander
Nationality: Soviet (Russian)
Results: Observed more gamma-ray bursts, analysed composition of the atmosphere, thermal balance and the nature of the clouds.
Photographs Taken: None; both cameras failed to operate on landing.
Mission Ended: April 1980
Termination of Probe: In heliocentric orbit
Pioneer Venus 1
Launched: May 20 1978
Reached Destination: December 4 1978
Type: Orbiter
Nationality: American
Results: Mapped the surface with radar, investigated the distribution of the clouds, the composition of the atmosphere, infra-red emissions, measured the magnetic field and the solar wind, monitored gamma-ray bursts. Also observed Halley’s Comet from orbit around Venus.
Photographs Taken: None
Mission Ended: October 22 1992
Termination of Probe: Burned up in Venus’s atmosphere after its orbit decayed
Pioneer Venus 2
Note: this was the first hybrid or multi-probe, containing five separate components - four probes and the spacecraft that carried them. The probes were dropped into Venus’s atmosphere without parachutes, recording as they descended. They were not intended nor designed to survive the impact on the surface, though one did.
Launched: August 8 1978
Reached Destination: December 9 1978
Type: Atmospheric
Nationality: American
Results: Determined the nature of the solar wind, the development of the atmosphere, measured distribution of infra-red radiation
Photographs Taken: None
Mission Ended: December 9 1978
Termination of Probe: Destroyed on impact (3 probes); fourth one presumably crushed on the surface
Venera 13
Launched: October 31 1981
Reached Destination: March 1 1982
Type: Flyby/Lander
Nationality: Soviet (Russian)
Results: Took soil samples and analysed them; first ever recordings from another planet as the probe was fitted with microphones.
Photographs Taken: Yes, but number unknown. They appear to have been possibly the first ones in colour, too.
Mission Ended: March 1 1982
Termination of Probe: Again, unsure but presumably crushed by the pressures on Venus’s surface.
Here’s a hilarious little story. Seems some of the Russian scientists got really excited when the cameras from the lander picked up what they described as “a disc, a black flap and a scorpion (!) which emerge, fluctuate and disappear” on the photographs. Engineers later shook their heads wryly and said, “they’re just the discarded lens caps from the cameras blowing in the Venusian wind, comrade!”
Venera 14
Launched: November 4 1981
Reached Destination: March 5 1982
Type: Flyby/Lander
Nationality: Soviet (Russian)
Results: Pretty much the same as
Venera 13 (it landed only 4 days after it, and was more or less identical).
Photographs Taken: Yes, but number unknown
Mission Ended: March 16 1983 (orbiter)
Termination of Probe: Crushed on the planet
Another funny story (and you don’t expect many of
them to come out of the cold, hardline, humourless regime of the Soviet Union in the early 1980s): when the lander tried to measure the compressibility of the soil, it accidentally instead focussed on the discarded lens caps from the cameras (oh, those lens caps again!) which had popped off and fell beside its measuring arm. Oops!
Venera 15
Launched: June 2 1983
Reached Destination: October 10 1983
Type: Orbiter
Nationality: Soviet (Russian)
Results: Nothing exciting; a few experiments carried out with radar and imaging.
Photographs Taken: Unknown
Mission Ended: January 5 1985
Termination of Probe: Unknown
Venera 16
Launched: June 7 1983
Reached Destination: October 11 1983
Type: Orbiter
Nationality: Soviet (Russian)
Results: Identical to
Venera 15, which preceded it into Venus orbit by one day. Yawnski.
Photographs Taken: Unknown
Mission Ended: July 1984
Termination of Probe: Unknown
Vega 1
Launched: December 15 1984
Reached Destination: June 11 1985
Type: Flyby/Atmospheric/Lander
Nationality: Soviet (Russian)
Results: Not much, due to high turbulence on the planet
Photographs Taken: None*
Mission Ended: January 13 1987
Termination of Probe: Orbiter in heliocentric orbit still; descent craft likely crushed, and a balloon capsule could still be merrily drifting through the lower atmosphere, for all we know. Or it may have burst, or crashed.
Note: after completing its mission on Venus, the orbiter headed off to take a butcher’s at Halley’s Comet.
* Because they landed at night, but apparently the probe took 700 shots of Halley’s Comet.
Vega 2
Launched: December 21 1984
Reached Destination: June 13 1985
Type: Flyby/Atmospheric/Lander
Nationality: Soviet (Russian)
Results: As Vega 1
Photographs Taken: None*
Mission Ended: March 24 1987
Termination of Probe: In, you guessed it, heliocentric orbit
Magellan
Launched: May 4 1989
Reached Destination: October 10 1990
Type: Orbiter
Nationality: American
Results: Mostly mapping of the surface of the planet, which, with new high-resolution cameras was discovered to be volcanic, relatively young, with no plate tectonics or wind erosion.
Photographs Taken: Yes, but number unknown
Mission Ended: October 13 1994
Termination of Probe: Crashed on Venusian surface
Note: Magellan was both the first return to exploration of space by America in eleven years (while the Russkies got well ahead of them) and the first to be launched from the new Space Shuttles, this one being carried on
Atlantis.