NASA Solarsystem Collection

Venera 10

Venera 10, like its sister craft Venera 9, fully accomplished its mission to soft-land on Venus and return data from the surface. The spacecraft followed an identical mission to that of its twin, arriving only a few days later after two trajectory corrections on 21 June and 18 October 1975.

The 660-kilogram lander separated from its parent on 23 October and entered the atmosphere two days later at 01:02 UT. During reentry, the lander survived gravity acceleration as high as 168 g and temperatures as high 12,000°C. It performed its complex landing procedures without fault and landed without incident at 02:17 UT approximately 2,200 kilometers from the Venera 9 landing site. Landing coordinates were 16° north latitude and 291° longitude.

Venera 10 transmitted for a record 65 minutes from the surface, although it was designed to last only 30 minutes. A photo of the Venera 10 landing site showed a smoother surface than that of its twin. Like Venera 9, the Venera 10 lander was supposed to take a 360° panorama but covered only 180° of the surroundings because of a stuck lens cover.

Meanwhile, the Venera 10 orbiter entered a 1,400 x 114,000-kilometer orbit around Venus inclined at 29°30'.

Soviet officials later revealed that the termination of data reception from both Veneras 9 and 10 was not caused by the adverse surface conditions but by the flying out of view of the orbiter relays for both spacecraft.

Gamma-ray spectrometer and radiation densitometer data indicated that the surface layer was akin to basalt rather than granite as hinted by the information from Venera 8.

06.14.1975

Solar System Exploration

SSE

Space

NASA

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

JPL

Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Planets

Venus

Spectrometer

Venera 10

Venera 9

Venera 8

Venera

Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Venus

Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)

18 October 1975

06-14-1975

1975

SPD-SLRSY-3483

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