Venus Express, Europe’s first mission to the Earth’s sister planet, arrived at its destination on 11 April 2006 after a five-month interplanetary journey to the inner solar system. By performing a series of critical manœuvres, the spacecraft reached its final operational orbit, at 151 million kilometres from Earth, in May 2006.
This orbit was specifically designed for the mission objectives, to provide data for global observations of the Venusian atmosphere, to carry out detailed studies of the surface and to understand how the planetary environment interacts with the solar wind. It has given scientists detailed high resolution observations of the North Pole and of the almost unknown region around the South Pole.
New data from Venus Express is allowing the international scientific community to make the first global study of the planet’s atmosphere in the different wavelengths, bringing new information about its dramatic greenhouse effect and the hurricane force winds, which characterise the atmosphere of Venus.