ESA Science & Technology - Venus Express
Fact Sheet
Venus Express is a satellite optimised for studying the atmosphere of Venus, from the surface right up to the ionosphere. It arrived at Venus in April 2006 and continued operating for more than eight years.
News
News
Venus' mysterious night side revealed
14 September 2017Scientists have used ESA's Venus Express to characterise the wind and upper cloud patterns on the night side of Venus for the first time–with surprising results.
Tracking a solar eruption through the Solar System
15 August 2017Ten spacecraft, from ESA's Venus Express to NASA's Voyager-2, felt the effect of a solar eruption as it washed through the Solar System while three other satellites watched, providing a unique perspective on this space weather event.
What lies beneath: Venus' surface revealed through the clouds
18 July 2016Using observations from ESA's Venus Express satellite, scientists have shown for the first time how weather patterns seen in Venus' thick cloud layers are directly linked to the topography of the surface below. Rather than acting as a barrier to our observations, Venus' clouds may offer insight into what lies beneath.
Venus has potential – but not for water
20 June 2016ESA's Venus Express may have helped to explain the puzzling lack of water on Venus. The planet has a surprisingly strong electric field – the first time this has been measured at any planet – that is sufficient to deplete its upper atmosphere of oxygen, one of the components of water.
Venus Express' swansong experiment sheds light on Venus' polar atmosphere
19 April 2016Some of the final results sent back by ESA's Venus Express before it plummeted down through the planet's atmosphere have revealed it to be rippling with atmospheric waves – and, at an average temperature of -157°C, colder than anywhere on Earth.
Hot lava flows discovered on Venus
18 June 2015ESA's Venus Express has found the best evidence yet for active volcanism on Earth's neighbour planet.
The Rocket Science Blog - updates from Venus Express
The Rocket Science Blog - updates from Venus Express
Venus Express: the last shout
23 January 2015Monitoring of the unmodulated X-band carrier signal being radiated by Venus Express has been conducted since the end of the mission was declared in December. This update was sent in earlier today by Rick Blake, Spacecraft Operations Engineer at ESOC working on the Venus Express mission. It will be the final operational VEX update, unless...
Update on VEX carrier monitoring
15 January 2015As we described last Friday, the operations team at ESOC are able to continue monitoring radio signals from Venus Express; they can 'see' the X-band carrier wave being transmitted from the spacecraft's high-gain antenna despite the fact that it is not pointed at Earth, although this, too, is steadily dropping off.
Tracking a ghost mission 238 million km away
9 January 2015On 16 December, ESA's hugely successful Venus Express mission came to an end after it exhausting its remaining propellant as of 28 November. But while no more science data can be gathered, and no more attempts to send commands will be made, the operations team at ESOC are able to continue monitoring radio signals from the spacecraft.
Venus Express anomaly
5 December 2014On 28 November 2014, the flight control team at ESOC reported loss of contact with Venus Express. Repeated attempts to re-establish contact using ESA and NASA deep-space tracking stations have been made since then, and there has been some limited success in the period since 3 December.
Venus Express Aerobraking Campaign
27 November 2014In the summer of 2014, the aerobraking campaign performed with Venus Express took the spacecraft deeper into the planet's atmosphere than ever before, reaching a minimum altitude of 129.2 km. This series of blog posts report on the campaign.
