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Venus Express Blasts Off
kitzilla writes "The European Space Agency's Venus Express probe has been successfully launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The mission's first attempt was scrubbed last month after technicians spotted a problem with the lift vehicle. In about five months, Venus Express will pull into orbit around our closest planetary neighbor and begin five months of scheduled observations. On the short list of mission objectives: a detailed mapping of Venus' surface, a survey of the planet's complex atmosphere, and a look into the possibility of active Venusian volcanoes."
There's a Video of the launch on the BBC
If I have nothing to hide, you have no reason to search me
37 megs, quicktime movie.
The ESA's Venus express portal
And a load of artist impressions, photos and cgi videos are on ESA's site here
A great day for the ESA, the data gathered from this and in comparison to that from the Mars Express is really going to give some good information on planetary warming and cooling.
Emily Lakdawalla of the Planetary Society is keeping a running tally of events on the Society's official weblog. In general, the weblog is a great source of space science news. According to her latest post, Venus Express has already reported back to ground control and is in healthy condition.
There's also the obligatory Wikipedia article on Venus Express, which has a nice description of what the craft will be doing.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4420210.stm - the BBC has both a report and a video (streaming).
Venus is an extreme case of climatology. It's about the same size as the Earth. It actually receives less sunlight than the Earth, even though it's closer to the Sun, because its cloud layer reflects so much incoming radiation. But it's hot hot hot.
That atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide, with some nitrogen, water vapour and sulphur dioxide. It's hot, acidic, and the pressure is the sort of thing you only get on Earth in the deep seas.
Now, we have to wonder how Venus got that way. One possibility for how Venus got such a thick, acidic atmosphere is that it is continually undergoing massive volcanic activity. If we can observe Venusian volcanoes, we can determine to what extent they might reasonably affect the climate on Venus.
If we can understand Venus, then we can use it to stress-test our planetary climate models and thereby improve our understanding of comparable processes on Earth. It shouldn't be too hard to think of a reason why we might urgently want to improve our understanding of Earth's climate systems as regards atmospheric carbon dioxide content...
There's a very good writeup of Venus and why it's interesting here.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
What rot. If that was the case we'd have used an Ariane. The rocket used here was Soyuz / Fregat - a Russian launcher.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
http://space.boardtracker.com
We only have a limited number of volcanoes on earth, and only of limited variety in type and structure. Seeing a few more of them, maybe of types we haven't seen here, might give us better insight on how such things work. Long time down the road, we might even get better in controlling, or at least predicting the behavior of the local ones.
Besides, active volcanoes indicate a planet has an active hot core, which would be interesting to know. Same argument as above, just substitute "planet" for "volcano"...
In Murphy We Turst
You should also consider: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/ http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/ http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mro/ ...
And your point is?
an ill wind that blows no good
Actually, it's cytherian.
Mercury - mercurian
Venus - cytherian (or venerean)
Earth - terran
Mars - martian
Jupiter - jovian
Saturn - saturnian
Uranus - uranian
Neptune - neptunian
Pluto - "Here, boy!"
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Ironically, I agree with you in principle, but I think you're a little too harsh. Yes, NASA is practically a caricature of the classic "bloatware" of entrenched government monopoly. HOWEVER, let's make it absolutely clear:
- ISS is the result of POLITICS, not NASA plans. NASA has gone along with the ISS (and shown proper enthusiasm for) the ISS for budgetary and political reasons, not because they are crusading for a vision of space exploration based on the ISS.
- The constant carping about shutting down the Hubble is vexing. The simple economics of it is cost > benefit, especially with having to rely on the crappy shuttle as the tender for the ISS. Finite resources. Personally, I'd LOVE it if NASA got a bigger budget but that's outside the scope of this discussion.
- NASA has recently done some STUNNING pure science. Mars rovers, anyone? Cassini? Mars Recon Orbiter? Deep Impact? Stardust? (ok, that kind of also became it's own "Deep Impact", but the pure science validation was there). And in the future? Dawn? New Horizons? Phoenix?
C'mon - NASA is as worthy of criticism as any government agency but you're making it sound like the ESA is the only one trying to do science, which is just silly.
BTW: big "grats" to the guys at ESA for the clean, solid launch. Best wishes on a safe and boring flight to Venus and a successful mission with oodles of data. GREAT JOB!
-Styopa