Apparently, the reason for what is known as the Venus Express anomaly stems from the lack of fuel, after eight years of operation. In the summer, the agency used a lot of fuel for dangerous diving maneuvers into the atmosphere of Venus
After more than eight years orbiting Venus, the planet that is perhaps the closest to the definition of hell, the signs of age are beginning to be seen on the Venus Express spacecraft. The spacecraft performed several dangerous maneuvers last summer, during which plunged into the atmosphere of Venus with the assumption that it is approaching the end of its active life anyway, and thus the European Space Agency tried to collect more scientific information about the planet.
Contact with her has now been lost except for fragmentary and weak telemetry data received by the ground stations of the European Space Agency and NASA, from which it appears that the solar collectors of Venus Express are directed towards the sun and that the spacecraft rotates slowly.
"It is likely that the remaining fuel in the Venus Express spaceship has run out." NASA wrote on its blog, pointing out the fact that in recent weeks it tried to raise the spacecraft to make more scientific observations, however due to the spinning of the spacecraft, the main antenna went out of the reception range of the Earth and therefore it is difficult to communicate with it.
"The spacecraft's operations team is currently trying to download the critical event table stored on protected memory inside the spacecraft, which may shed light on the series of events that occurred in the last few days," the post reads. "There is still a need to investigate the roots of the anomaly, whether it stems from the fuel condition or something else."
For information on the Universe Today website
More of the topic in Hayadan:
- Venus Express survived a transit through Venus's atmosphere
- Venus Express Findings - Interim Summary (2008)
- Venus Express - Additional Findings Part I (2013)
- Venus Express - Additional Findings Part II (2013)
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And meanwhile, there's news from Pluto.