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Venera 14 Lander
| title |
Venera 14 Lander |
| date |
11.04.1981 |
| description |
Venera 14 was identical to its twin, Venera 13. The spacecraft carried out three midcourse corrections on the way to Venus: on 14 November 1981, 23 November 1981, and 25 February 1982. Russian sources indicate that one of the corrections was incorrect (probably the first) and could have jeopardized the mission. The lander probe separated from its flyby parent on 3 March 1982 before the entry cycle began. The probe's main parachute opened at an altitude of 62 to 63 kilometers, thus activating the atmospheric instruments. The parachute was released at an altitude of 47 kilometers, and the 760-kilogram lander fell to the surface using only the atmosphere as a retarding medium. The probe made safe contact with the Venusian surface at 07:00:10 UT on 3 March 1982 and continued with 57 minutes of transmissions. Landing coordinates were 13.25° south latitude and 310° longitude, about 1,000 kilometers from the Venera 13 landing site. As with its twin, Venera 14 returned color photographs of its surroundings and examined a soil sample (about 1 cubic centimeter taken from a 30-millimeter-deep sample). Soil was deposited in a chamber sealed off from the outside environment and was then progressively transferred through a series of chambers by blowing air until the sample was deposited in its final chamber with a temperature of only 30°C. Here it was examined by the x-ray fluorescence spectrometer. Temperature and pressure outside were considerably higher than at the Venera 13 site: 470°C and 93.5 atmospheres, respectively. The flyby probe, meanwhile, passed Venus at a range of 36,000 kilometers and entered heliocentric orbit, continuing to provide data on solar x-ray flares. It performed one trajectory change on 14 November 1982. |
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Venera 10
| title |
Venera 10 |
| date |
06.14.1975 |
| description |
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. |
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