NYT: Craft Nears Venus to Seek Global Warming Clues

This should be some interesting science. Some of these programs must be a real treat to design and build and then see fly to some faraway destination. We should really do more of this sort of thing. Everyone has their own priorities I suppose. Mine are science, engineering, business, defense - making our country great, stable, thriving. Others with entitlements such as food stamps, welfare, handouts - making our country poor and unable to produce. What is the proverb with the fish? Teach a man to fish vs. giving him a fish. Do the math...

Craft Nears Venus to Seek Global Warming Clues
New York Times 04/10/2006
Author: Warren E. Leary
c. 2006 New York Times Company
WASHINGTON, April 9 -- After getting little attention for more than a decade, Venus is about to receive a visiting spacecraft from Earth designed to investigate its dense, hot atmosphere for clues about runaway global warming that may shed light on potential changes here.

Venus Express, the first mission by the European Space Agency to Earth's nearest neighbor, is set to go into orbit around the second planet from the Sun early on Tuesday.

If the robot craft accomplishes the complex and tricky maneuver of slowing down enough to swing into orbit, scientists hope it will help solve the mystery of how the shrouded, churning atmosphere of Venus formed and maintains the planet's broiler-like temperatures.

The United States and Russia studied Venus extensively during the early days of spacecraft planetary exploration. But the last dedicated mission was NASA's Magellan, which used radar to map most of the planet over four years before plunging into the atmosphere in 1994. Even after those missions, which included landers and atmospheric crafts, the inhospitable environment protects many secrets.

...

Venus and Earth are roughly the same size and mass, and are composed of the same materials, but evolved differently hundreds of millions of years ago. Venus is covered with a thick mantle of perpetual clouds with a dense atmosphere made up mostly of carbon dioxide laced with sulfuric acid. The clouds hold in heat from the sun and possible volcanic activity, resulting in a constant surface temperature of 870 degrees. The crushing atmospheric pressure is a hundred times greater than on the Earth's surface.

The $260 million Venus Express mission is intended to study the planet for at least two Venus days -- the slowly rotating planet completes one every 243 Earth days. If the spacecraft is operating properly, the mission might be extended to double that time, project officials said.

Aerospace | Engineering