Two spacecraft with scientific instruments, a Multiprobe and an Orbiter, were sent to Venus by the USA in 1978 and successfully performed a series of measurements of the Venusian environment, in situ from the probes and remotely from the Orbiter. The paper discusses the scientific objectives of the missions, describes the spacecraft and trajectories, presents the performance of the spacecraft and instruments, and summarizes the scientific findings. The results indicate an excess of primordial argon at Venus; four distinct cloud layers were observed; four widely separated sites in both daylight and night time show almost no differences in atmospheric temperature and pressure below about 50 km altitude; winds up to 200 m/sec were observed at high altitudes; large plateaus were identified on the surface.


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    Title :

    The Pioneer Venus Missions


    Contributors:
    Hall, C. F. (author)

    Conference:

    International Astronautical Federation, International Astronautical Congress


    Publication date :

    1979-09-01


    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    No indication


    Language :

    English




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