Launch date confirmed for Venus Express
The fully integrated Soyuz FG-Fregat vehicle
carrying Venus Express standing on the
launch complex, in Baikonur, Kazakhstan.
Image source: ESA
Maggie McKee writes in NewScientist:
The countdown has begun for Europe to launch its Venus Express spacecraft – the first mission to the swelteringly hot planet in 15 years will blast off on Wednesday.
The €220 million ($260 million) mission will lift off on a Soyuz-Fregat rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 0333 GMT on 9 November. It carries seven instruments that will study the planet from an elliptical orbit which will carry it as close as 250 kilometres to the surface, right out to 60,000 km. Observations will commence in April 2006.
posted by Fergie @ 11/08/2005 07:06:00 AM
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