Starting from 1960s’ United States and the SovietUnion began to launch probe missions to Venus. The major Soviet series wasnamed Venera and the American missions were named Mariner. There are many Venusmissions, including seven had analyzed rock conformations. At large, penetratingpressure and hurricane-force winds destroy all probes within 60 minutes, exceptin 1982, a Venera probe lands on surface and operated normally for 127 minutesand most of the data on Venus due to the long and intense workings of the Soviets.Meariner 2 which passed more than twenty thousand miles was the up-front Sovietspacecraft established the intensity of Venus’s surface circumstances andmeasured its magnetic field in 1961. Venera 4 was the earliest Soviet probesuccessfully returned report about Venusian atmosphere in the evening timeperiod of Venus in the height of 26 kilometers. It indicated that vast majorityof Venusian atmosphere consists of carbon dioxide and temperature and pressureincreased gradually as probe parachuted to Venus’s surface, until thetemperature reached 262oC and 18 Pascal.
Venera 8 completed thefirst soft touchdown during daytime period of Venus in 1872 with record of 880oFtemperature, having achievement of measurement of wind velocity, lightintensity, surface radioactivity and pressure. Three year later, the nextseries Venera 9 took images of Venus’s surface and made the first measurementsof the properties of the clouds, the gravitational field and wind speed. PioneerVenus 1 was an orbiter with the first radar, ultraviolet, and infraredobservation, its highly elliptical orbit brought it within 120 miles of theplanet’s surface. The relative recent Venus missions include MESSENGER, a NASArobotic spacecraft which had two Venus flybys.
Its second flyby of Venus on June5 2007 at an altitude of 338 km flew with the largest velocity reduction of themission. This encounter to Venus using all equipment provided visible andnear-infrared imaging data, ultraviolet and X-ray spectrometry of the northern atmosphereof Venus. Another latest mission Venus Express operated by European SpaceAgency have several achievements such as first temperature map of southernhemisphere, evidence of past oceans, presence of lightings, discovery of hugedouble atmospheric vortex existed at south pole in Venus etc.
