"Jim Oberg" wrote in message
.. .

Only one space mission visited Venus in
the past 20 years, by my count (T-shirt for
corrections), but a number of probes made
Venus-fly-bys on their way elesewhere --
does anybody have a complete list? I'm doing
a pre-flight piece on Venus-Express.




El Rey de los Chingones wrote:
If you count December of 1994 as less than twenty years, then you can count
the Soviet Vega 1 and Vega 2 missions. Their primary target was Halley's
comet, but they did fly by Venus and drop off both landers and atmospheric
probes. The balloons each lasted for a couple of days, and one of the
landers made it down in working order.

Galileo did a fly by in 1989 on the way to Jupiter. I think it took some
snapshots.

Magellan was in orbit doing radar mapping from 1989 to 1994.

That's all I can think off.


Plus Cassini - April 26, 1998.

Out of interest, I think the next Venus encounter is Venus Express April
2006. But that's not fair, because it's a dedicated Venus mission, very
unfashionable

I think the next gravity assist is Messenger in October 2006.

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Fin

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