Venera 7
On August 17th 1970 the then Soviet Union
launched Venera 7 which would become the first probe to successfully send data
from the surface of the planet Venus. It was in fact the first probe to send
back data after landing on another planet.
It landed on Venus on December 15th
that year. Venera 7 was designed to enter the atmosphere of Venus,
deploy a parachute to slow its fall toward the surface. But, the parachute
ripped and collapsed during the descent, leaving Venera 7 in freefall for 29
minutes before it slammed into the Venusian surface. At the time, the probe
appeared to stop sending signals, but incredibly it had survived if only for a
brief period. Analysis of the radio signals revealed that the probe had
survived the impact and continued transmitting a weak signal for 23 minutes.
Venera 7 indicated that Venus was very hostile, the probe
was able to send data on the temperature of Venus the temperature was an
incredible 475 degrees Celsius with the atmospheric pressure 92 bar, 1 bar is
the standard air pressure on Earth, so the pressure at the surface of Venus is
much higher than that on Earth. There
was a wind speed of nearly 5.6 mph or 9 km/h.
So while Venera 7 may not have made the soft landing Soviet
scientists hoped it would, it did send back data on what the surface of Venus
was like and set the stage for even more ambitious missions like Venera 13,
which landed on Venus on March 1, 1982 to snap the first colour pictures of the
planet from its surface.
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