Fergie's Tech Blog

10 August 1990: The Magellan Space Probe Reaches Venus.

The Magellan spacecraft carried out a radar-mapping mission from 1989-1994, orbiting Venus from 1990-1994. It created the first (and currently the best) near-photographic quality, ultra-high resolution mapping of the planet's surface features. Prior Venus missions had created low resolution radar globes of general, continent-sized formations. Magellan, however, finally allowed detailed imaging and analysis of craters, hills, ridges, and other geologic formations, to a degree comparable to the visible-light photographic mapping of other planets. Magellan's global radar map will remain the most detailed Venus map in existence for the forseeable future, as there are currently no plans for any robotic mission to try and surpass its resolution.

It was named after the sixteenth-century Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan. Magellan was the first planetary spacecraft to be launched by a space shuttle when it was carried aloft by the shuttle Atlantis from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on May 4, 1989, on a mission designated STS-30. Atlantis took Magellan into low Earth orbit, where it was released from the shuttle's cargo bay. A solid-fuel motor called the Inertial Upper Stage (IUS) then fired, sending Magellan on a 15-month cruise looping around the Sun 1-1/2 times before it arrived at its orbit around Venus on August 10, 1990. A solid-fuel motor on Magellan then fired, placing the spacecraft in orbit around Venus. In 1994 it plunged to the surface as planned and partly vaporized; some sections are thought to have hit the planet's surface.

posted by Fergie @ 8/10/2006 12:01:00 AM