After a journey of nearly five months and 400 million kilometres, Venus Express was successfully inserted into orbit around Venus this morning at 11:07 BST by the joint operations team of the European Space Agency and EADS Astrium.
The joint team fired the 400 Newton main engine for 50 minutes to slow the probe sufficiently for it to be captured by Venus’s gravity. Venus Express is now ready to start its "two Venus years mission" (approx. 500 Earth-days) to investigate the structure, composition and dynamics of the Venusian atmosphere using its seven scientific instruments. The probe will orbit Venus passing above its poles at an altitude of between 250 and 66,000 km.
Venus Express is the first European spacecraft to visit the planet Venus, the second planet in our solar system. The probe was designed and built for the European Space Agency, in only 33 months, under the prime contractorship of EADS Astrium (France) and was launched 9 November 2005 from the Baikonour Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
EADS Astrium is Europe’s leading satellite system specialist. Its activities cover complete civil and military telecommunications and Earth observation systems, science and navigation programmes, and all spacecraft avionics and equipment. EADS Astrium is a subsidiary of EADS SPACE. In 2005 EADS SPACE had a turnover of €2.7 billion and 11,000 employees in France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Spain.
EADS is a global leader in aerospace, defence and related services. In 2005, EADS generated revenues of €34.2 billion and employed a workforce of more than 113,000.
