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Space Station Info >> Vega lander
Vega lander
On June 11 and June 15 of 1985
the Soviet Vega 1 and Vega 2 probes encountered
Venus. Landing vehicles carried experiments focusing
on cloud aerosol composition and structure. Each
carried an ultraviolet absorption spectrometer,
aerosol particle-size analyzers, and devices for
collecting aerosol substance and analyzing it
with a mass spectrometer, a gas chromatograph,
and an X-ray fluorescence spectrometer. The upper
two layers of the clouds were found to be sulfuric
acid droplets, but the lower layer is most likely
composed of phosphoric acid solution. The crust
of Venus was analyzed with the soil drill experiment
and a gamma ray spectrometer. As the landers carried
no cameras,so no images were returned from the
surface.
The Vega missions
also used balloon-borne aerostat probes that
floated at about 53 km altitude respectively
for 46 and 60 hours, traveling about 1/3 of
the way around the planet. These measured
wind speed, temperature, and pressure and
cloud density. More turbulence and convection
activity than expected was discovered, including
occasional plunges of 1 to 3 km in downdrafts.
The Vega spacecraft continued to rendezvous
with Halley's Comet nine months later, bringing
14 instruments and cameras in addition for
that mission |
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