Venus Express launch campaign starts (Forwarded)

ESA News
http://www.esa.int

3 August 2005

Venus Express launch campaign starts

ESA's Venus Express spacecraft has just completed its last phase of
testing in Europe and is ready to be shipped to its launch site at the
Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

One and a half years after its sister spacecraft Mars Express arrived at
Mars, Europe's newest planetary probe is ready to depart on the first
leg of its journey to Earth's own sister planet, the mysterious Venus.

Venus Express was proposed in 2001, as a mission concept to take as much
as possible of the Mars Express design and use it for another planetary
mission.

The mission to Venus was officially approved in 2002 by ESA's Science
Programme Committee, and the industrial contract to build the spacecraft
was awarded in October 2002 to EADS Astrium, leading a team of 25
subcontractors from 14 European countries.

The spacecraft is currently at the Astrium-owned Intespace facility in
Toulouse, France where it has been undergoing testing since October 2004.

"The spacecraft really deserves its name, as never before has an ESA
scientific mission been developed that rapidly!" said Don McCoy, ESA
Project Manager for Venus Express. The mission has in fact taken only
four years from concept to launch.

Work on Venus Express began in earnest eight months before Mars Express
was launched. This meant that continuity was maintained in the
programmes and the industrial consortium was kept almost unchanged.
Thirty-four months later, the spacecraft has passed its Flight
Acceptance Review, and is ready for shipping.

"We are legitimately proud of this achievement which was possible
through a co-operation with ESA, industry and the scientific community,"
said Don McCoy.

Built by Alenia Spazio of Turin, Italy, the spacecraft was brought to
Toulouse with its seven scientific instruments, mainly inherited from
the Mars Express and Rosetta missions, already integrated. These
instruments will provide new clues on the planet's peculiar features,
that still remain unexplained even though more than 20 Russian and US
probes have visited Venus since 1964.

The mission will provide the most comprehensive study ever of the
Venusian atmosphere. It will dig into mysteries such as the unexplained
fast atmospheric rotation in four days around the planet and the polar
vortices.

It will study the global thermal balance and the role of the strongest
'greenhouse effect' found in the Solar System, as well as the structure
and dynamics of the clouds and the mysterious ultraviolet markings
detected above the cloud cover.

In Toulouse, the spacecraft underwent two rounds of system-level testing
and subsystem checks before and after environmental testing. The latter
included vibration and acoustic testing, necessary to verify that it
would survive launch.

They also included thermal vacuum testing, to make sure that the
spacecraft will withstand the cold of deep space, and a special set of
simulated solar illumination tests, to make sure the spacecraft will
survive the harsh thermal conditions created by the vicinity of the Sun
at Venus.

The spacecraft closely resembles Mars Express, but has been redesigned
with several major modifications to allow it to face a very different
environment around Venus. Venus Express has improved thermal control
systems, to sustain a spacecraft heating that at Venus is four time
greater than at Mars.

As the spacecraft will be much closer to the Sun than Mars Express, and
therefore there is higher availability of solar radiation to power the
spacecraft, the solar arrays have been redesigned to be smaller than
those of Mars Express. Also, their new gallium-arsenide based technology
is more tolerant to high temperatures.

Differently from Mars Express, instead of one high-gain antenna, Venus
Express has two -- pointed in opposite directions. In fact, as seen from
Venus, Earth is an outer planet and it can be in any direction relative
to the Sun. Two antennas will allow the spacecraft to communicate with
Earth in any configuration, always having the side hosting delicate
instruments away from the Sun.

Now Venus Express is in its container, which will be closed this week
and moved by truck to Toulouse-Blagnac airport for its trip to Baikonur.
Venus Express will fly via Moscow on board an Antonov 124 commercial
cargo plane, arriving at its launch site on Sunday 7 August.

For more information:

ESA Media Relations Office
Tel: +33(0)15369 7155
Fax: +33(0)1 5369 7690

More about...

* Looking at Venus
http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Venus_Express/index.html
* Venus Express factsheet
http://www.esa.int/esaSC/SEM2EE1A6BD_index_0.html

Related articles

* First Mars, then Venus!
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEM2V8T1VED_index_0.html
* Greenhouse effects ... also on other planets
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMSY02A6BD_index_0.html
* Probes explore our solar system
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/ESAIEFG18ZC_index_0.html
* No shortage of mysteries on Venus
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/ESAHRH7708D_index_0.html
* Venus Express spacecraft is complete
http://www.esa.int/esaSC/SEMECMMKPZD_exploring_0.html

Related links

* Starsem -- the Soyuz
http://www.starsem.com/
* ESA Mission Operations

http://www.esa.int/spacecraftops/ESO...551445449.html

IMAGE CAPTIONS:

[Image 1:
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMMDL808BE_index_1.html]
Venus Express at INTESPACE, Toulouse, during testing of possible radio
interferences between different spacecraft systems and between
spacecraft and launcher.

Credits: ESA/EADS Astrium

[Image 2:
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMMDL808BE...html#subhead1]
Venus Express was shipped from Alenia Spazio in Turin, Italy, to
INTESPACE, Toulouse, for the final testing phase in October 2004. The
tests were concluded in July 2005.

Credits: ESA/EADS Astrium

[Image 3:
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMMDL808BE...html#subhead2]
Artist's impression of Venus Express.

Credits: ESA

[Image 4:
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMMDL808BE...html#subhead3]
Venus Express undergoing thermal vacuum testing with simulated Sun
exposure, by INTESPACE, Toulouse.

Credits: ESA/EADS Astrium