Venus Express – Science Operations Experience At Venus
- Paper number
IAC-07-A3.2.03
- Author
Mr. Raymond Hoofs, European Space Agency (ESA)/ESTEC, The Netherlands
- Coauthor
Dr. Dmitri Titov, Germany
- Coauthor
Mr. Hakan Svedhem, European Space Agency (ESA)/ESTEC, The Netherlands
- Coauthor
Dr. Detlef Koschny, European Space Agency (ESA)/ESTEC, The Netherlands
- Coauthor
Mr. Ignacio Tanco, European Space Agency/ESOC, Germany
- Year
2007
- Abstract
The Venus Express mission is the European Space Agency’s (ESA) first mission exploring Venus. It was launched in November 2005 by a Soyuz-Fregat launcher and arrived at Venus in April 2006. The mission covers a broad range of scientific goals including physics, chemistry, dynamics and structure of the atmosphere as well as atmospheric interaction with the surface and several aspects of the surface itself. Furthermore it investigates the plasma environment and interaction of the solar wind with the atmosphere. After the arrival at Venus the Venus Express spacecraft started routine science operations after being just one month in the operational orbit. Since then Venus Express has been observing Venus every day for more than one year continuously making new discoveries. In order to ensure that all the science objectives are fulfilled the Venus Express Science Operations Centre (VSOC) has the task of coordinating and implementing the science operations for the mission. During the first year of Venus observations the VSOC and the experiment teams gained a lot of experience in how to make best use of the observation conditions. While operating the spacecraft in orbit we also acquired more knowledge on the technical constraints and more insight in the science observations and their results. As the nominal mission is coming to an end, the extended mission will start from October 2007. The Extended Science Mission Plan was developed taking into account the lessons learned. At the same time new observations were added and specific observations were fine-tuned in order to complete the science objectives of the mission. This presentation will show how the previous observations influence the current requirements for the observations around Venus today and how they influence the observations in the mission extension. Also it will give an overview of the Extended Science Mission Plan and its challenges for the future observations.
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
IAC-07-A3.2.03.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).
To get the manuscript, please contact IAF Secretariat.