Venera 14
 Venera 14 postage stamp | |
| Mission type | Venusflyby/ lander |
|---|---|
| Operator | Soviet Academy of Sciences |
| COSPAR ID | 1981-110A 1981-110D |
| SATCATno. | 12939 15600 |
| Mission duration | Travel: 4 months and 1 day Lander: 57 minutes |
| Spacecraft properties | |
| Spacecraft type | 4V-1No. 761 |
| Manufacturer | NPO Lavochkin |
| Launch mass | 4,394.5 kg (9,688 lb)[1] |
| Landing mass | 760 kilograms (1,680 lb) |
| Dry mass | 1,632.71 kilograms (3,599.5 lb) |
| Dimensions | 2.7 m × 2.3 m × 5.7 m (8.9 ft × 7.5 ft × 18.7 ft) |
| Start of mission | |
| Launch date | November 4, 1981,05:31:00 UTC[1] |
| Rocket | Proton-K/D-1 |
| Launch site | Baikonur200/39 |
| End of mission | |
| Last contact | lander: 5 March 1982 / carrier: 9 April 1983[2] |
| Orbital parameters | |
| Reference system | Heliocentric |
| Eccentricity | 0.17 |
| Perihelion altitude | 0.71Astronomical units |
| Aphelion altitude | 0.99 Astronomical units |
| Inclination | 2.3 degrees |
| Period | 286 days |
| Flyby ofVenus | |
| Spacecraft component | Venera 14 flight platform |
| Closest approach | March 3, 1982 |
| Distance | 26,050 km (16,190 mi) |
| Venuslander | |
| Spacecraft component | Venera 14 descent craft |
| Landing date | March 5, 1982, 07:00:10 UTC |
| Landing site | 13°15′S310°00′E/ 13.25°S 310°E(east ofPhoebe Regio) |
Venera 14(called Venus 14 in English) was a probe in theSovietVenera programfor theexplorationofVenus.
Venera 14 was identical to theVenera 13spacecraft, built to take advantage of the 1981 Venuslaunch opportunity.Venera 14 was launched on 4 November 1981 at 05:31:00 UTC, five days after Venera 13 launched on 30 October 1981 at 06:04:00 UTC. Both had an on-orbit dry mass of 760 kg (1,680 lb).
Design[edit]
Each mission consisted of a cruise stage and an attached descent craft.
Cruise stage[edit]
As the cruise stage flew by Venus, thebusacted as a data relay for the lander before continuing on to aheliocentric orbit.Venera 14 was equipped with agamma-ray spectrometer,UVgrating monochromator,electronandprotonspectrometers,gamma-ray burstdetectors,solar windplasma detectors, and two-frequency transmitters which made measurements before, during, and after the Venus flyby.
Descent lander[edit]
The descent lander was a hermetically sealed pressure vessel that contained most of the instrumentation and electronics. The lander was mounted on a ring-shaped landing platform and topped by an antenna. Designed similar to the earlier Venera 9–12 landers, the Venera 14 lander carried instruments to take chemical and isotopic measurements, monitor the spectrum of scattered sunlight, and record electric discharges during its descent phase through the Venusian atmosphere. The spacecraft used a camera system, an X-ray fluorescence spectrometer, a screw drill and surface sampler, a dynamic penetrometer, and a seismometer to conduct investigations on the surface.
The list of lander experiments and instruments include:[3]
- Accelerometer,Impact analysis – Bison-M
- Thermometers,Barometers– ITD
- Spectrometer / Directional Photometer – IOAV-2
- UltravioletPhotometer
- Mass spectrometer– MKh-6411
- Penetrometer/ Soil ohmmeter – PrOP-V
- Chemical Redox indicator – Kontrast
- 2 color telephotometer cameras – TFZL-077
- Gaschromatograph– Sigma-2
- Radio/Microphone/Seismometer– Groza-2
- Nephelometer– MNV-78-2
- Hydrometer– VM-3R
- X-Ray Fluorescence Spectrometer(Aerosol) – BDRA-1V
- X-Ray Fluorescence Spectrometer (Soil) – Arakhis-2
- Soil Drilling Apparatus – GZU VB-02
- Stabilized Oscillator /Doppler Radio
- Small solar batteries – MSB
Landing[edit]
Venera 14 landed at13°15′S310°00′E/ 13.25°S 310°E,about 950 kilometres (590 mi) southwest of Venera 13, near the eastern flank ofPhoebe Regioon abasalticplain.
After launch and following a four-month cruise to Venus, the descent vehicle separated from the bus and plunged into the Venusian atmosphere on 5 March 1982. A parachute deployed after the lander entered the atmosphere. The parachute released once the lander reached an altitude of about 50 kilometres (31 mi); simple air braking was used in the final descent.
Like its predecessors, Venera 14 was equipped with several systems with which to observe and analyse the Venusian surface and atmosphere.
The quartz camera windows were protected by lens covers that popped off after descent, allowing Venera 14 to capture images of the surface.
The Venera 14 lander was also equipped with a surface soil probe designed to measure the compressibility of the Venusian soil. By unfortunate chance, the lens caps came to rest at the exact point the probe was due to enter and analyse the soil. Thus, instead of the soil, the probe measured the compressibility of the Venera 14 lens cap.
The surface soil composition samples were determined by the X-ray fluorescence spectrometer, and were shown to be similar to oceanictholeiiticbasalts.
Additionally, Venera 14 was equipped with acoustic microphones designed to record atmospheric noise. The recordings were later used to calculate the average wind speed on the Venusian surface. Subsequent analysis determined the average surface wind speed to be between 0.3 and 0.5 metres per second (0.98 and 1.64 ft/s).[4]
The Venera 14 lander functioned for at least 57 minutes (the lander's planned lifespan was 32 minutes) in an environment with a temperature of 465 °C (869 °F) and a pressure of 94 Earth atmospheres (9.5 MPa). Telemetry was maintained by means of the Venera 14 bus in orbit, which carried signals from the lander's uplink antenna and then on to Earth.[5]
Post encounter[edit]
The spacecraft bus ended up in a heliocentric orbit where it continued to make observations in the X-ray and gamma ray spectrum.[6]The bus activated its engine on the 14th November 1982 to provide data for laterVega programmissions.[6]The last published data for the probe is dated 16 March 1983.[6]
Fictional references[edit]
- Venera 14 is visited by a Russian cosmonaut in BBC'sSpace Odyssey: Voyage To The Planets.
Image processing[edit]
AmericanresearcherDon P. Mitchellhas processed the color images from Venera 13 and 14 using the raw original data.[7]The new images are based on a more accurate linearization of the original 9-bit logarithmic pixel encoding.
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^abSiddiqi, Asif (2018).Beyond Earth: A Chronicle of Deep Space Exploration, 1958–2016(PDF)(second ed.). NASA History Program Office.
- ^Siddiqi, Asif A. (2018).Beyond Earth: A Chronicle of Deep Space Exploration, 1958–2016(PDF).The NASA history series (second ed.). Washington, DC: NASA History Program Office. p. 157.ISBN978-1-62683-042-4.LCCN2017059404.SP2018-4041.
- ^Mitchell, Don P."Drilling into the Surface of Venus".Mental Landscape.Retrieved13 April2013.
- ^Ksanfomaliti, L. V.; Goroshkova, N. V.; Naraeva, M. K.; Suvorov, A. P.; Khondryev, V. K. & Yabrova, L. V. (1982-05-17). "Acoustic Measurements of the Wind Velocity at the Venera-13 and Venera-14 Landing Sites".Soviet Astronomy Letters.8:227–229.Bibcode:1982SvAL....8..227K.
- ^"Venera 14 Descent Craft".NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive.
- ^abcUlivi, Paolo; Harland, David M (2007).Robotic Exploration of the Solar System Part I: The Golden Age 1957-1982.Springer. p. 289.ISBN9780387493268.
- ^Mitchell, Don."Soviet Space Image Catalog".Mental Landscape.
External links[edit]
| Active missions |
|    | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Past missions |
| ||||||||||||
| Planned missions |
| ||||||||||||
| Proposed missions |
| ||||||||||||
| Cancelled / concepts | |||||||||||||
| Program overviews | |||||||||||||
| Related | |||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||