Venera 1

Venera 1 (Russian: Венера-1 meaning Venus 1), also known as Venera-1VA No.2 and occasionally in the West as Sputnik 8 was the first spacecraft to fly past Venus, as part of the Soviet Union's Venera programme.[1] Launched in February 1961, it flew past Venus on 19 May of the same year; however, radio contact with the probe was lost before the flyby, resulting in it returning no data.

Venera 1
Mockup of the Venera 1 spacecraft
Mission typeVenus impactor
OperatorOKB-1
Harvard designation1961 Gamma 1
COSPAR ID1961-003A
SATCAT no.80
Mission duration7 days
Spacecraft properties
Spacecraft1VA No.2
ManufacturerOKB-1
Launch mass6,424.0 kilograms (14,162.5 lb)
Dry mass643.5 kilograms (1,419 lb)
Start of mission
Launch dateFebruary 12, 1961, 00:34:36 (1961-02-12UTC00:34:36Z) UTC
RocketMolniya 8K78
Launch siteBaikonur 1/5
End of mission
Last contact19 February 1961 (1961-02-20)
Orbital parameters
Reference systemHeliocentric
Eccentricity0.173
Perihelion altitude1.019 AU
Aphelion altitude0.718 AU
Inclination0.58°
Period311 days
Flyby of Venus
Closest approach19 May 1961
Distance100,000 km (62,000 mi)
 

Spacecraft

Venera 1 was a 643.5-kilogram (1,419 lb) probe consisting of a cylindrical body 1.05 metres (3 ft 5 in) in diameter topped by a dome, totalling 2.035 metres (6 ft 8.1 in) in height. This was pressurized to 1.2 standard atmospheres (120 kPa) with dry nitrogen, with internal fans to maintain even distribution of heat. Two solar panels extended from the cylinder, charging a bank of silver-zinc batteries. A 2-metre parabolic wire-mesh antenna was designed to send data from Venus to Earth on a frequency of 922.8 MHz. A 2.4-metre antenna boom was used to transmit short-wave signals during the near-Earth phase of the mission. Semidirectional quadrupole antennas mounted on the solar panels provided routine telemetry and telecommand contact with Earth during the mission, on a circularly-polarized decimetre radio band.

The probe was equipped with scientific instruments including a flux-gate magnetometer attached to the antenna boom, two ion traps to measure solar wind, micrometeorite detectors, and Geiger counter tubes and a sodium iodide scintillator for measurement of cosmic radiation. An experiment attached to one solar panel measured temperatures of experimental coatings. Infrared and/or ultraviolet radiometers may have been included. The dome contained a KDU-414 engine used for mid-course corrections. Temperature control was achieved by motorized thermal shutters.

During most of its flight, Venera 1 was spin stabilized. It was the first spacecraft designed to perform mid-course corrections, by entering a mode of 3-axis stabilization, fixing on the Sun and the star Canopus. Had it reached Venus, it would have entered another mode of 3-axis stabilization, fixing on the Sun and Earth, and using for the first time a parabolic antenna to relay data.

Launch

Venera 1 was the second of two attempts to launch a probe to Venus in February 1961, immediately following the launch of its sister ship Venera-1VA No.1,[2] which failed to leave Earth orbit.[3] Soviet experts launched Venera-1 using a Molniya carrier rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The launch took place at 00:34:36 GMT on 12 February 1961.[4]

The spacecraft, along with the rocket's Blok-L upper stage, was initially placed into a 229 × 282 km low Earth orbit,[1] before the upper stage fired to place "Venera 1" into a heliocentric orbit, directed towards Venus. The 11D33 engine was the world's first staged-combustion-cycle rocket engine, and also the first use of an ullage engine to allow a liquid-fuel rocket engine to start in space.

Failure

Three successful telemetry sessions were conducted, gathering solar-wind and cosmic-ray data near Earth, at the Earth's Magnetopause, and on February 19 at a distance of 1,900,000 km (1,200,000 mi). After discovering the solar wind with Luna 2, Venera 1 provided the first verification that this plasma was uniformly present in deep space. Seven days later, the next scheduled telemetry session failed to occur. On May 19, 1961, Venera 1 passed within 100,000 km (62,000 mi) of Venus. With the help of the British radio telescope at Jodrell Bank, some weak signals from Venera 1 may have been detected in June. Soviet engineers believed that Venera 1 failed due to the overheating of a solar-direction sensor.[5]

See also

References
  1. "Venera 1". NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive. Retrieved 2019-08-15.
  2. NSSDC Chronology of Venus Exploration (NASA Goddard Space Center), accessed August 9, 2010
  3. NSSDC Tentatively Identified (Soviet) Missions and Launch Failures (NASA Goddard Space Center), accessed August 9, 2010
  4. McDowell, Jonathan. "Launch Log". Jonathan's Space Page. Retrieved 3 January 2013.
  5. "Venera 1 launches toward Venus, February 12, 1961". AspenCore, Inc. Retrieved 2020-06-06.
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