The Solar Orbiter spacecraft, a joint venture between NASA and the European Space Agency, passed Venus for the first of many flybys as it studies the sun.
Launched in February 2020, the Solar Orbiter passed just 4,700 miles, or 7,500 kilometers, away from the top of the Venus clouds at 7:39 EST on December 27th. This first pass by Venus marks a milestone for the spacecraft as it spends the next seven years orbiting the sun, gathering valuable research data about the center of our solar system.
To get as close as possible to the sun, the orbiter must make bends of Venus to change its orbit and gain motion. The passport allowed the planet to collect some data on Venus as well, but the ESA noted that there would be no images of the planet. This lack of imagery is largely due to the fact that the heat shielding the craft needs to be continuously pointed towards the sun to protect the craft. All the construction and imaging equipment marks through this shield, meaning there is no opportunity for non-solar images on the mission.
Thanks to him @esaoperations , a large dish in Argentina and our wonderful team @Imperiacollege , we already have the Venus flyby data @ESASolarOrbiter on the ground. It all looks good, nice shock, waves down the river. What a great team. pic.twitter.com/KZ8jPTmXRz
– Solar Orbiter Magnetometer (@SolarOrbiterMAG) 27 December 2020
Being the first time the orbiter passed Venus and collected data on the planet, the team entered the event with uncertain expectations. Data were collected using an on-board magnetometer, radio wave and plasma device, providing temporary data back to earth as seen in the tweet above.
ACQUISITION: SUPPLY OF ORBITER ON BEHALF OF BEING.
Earth teams are actually digging into the data to see if they can pull off anything of value, but since the sun is the main mission of the orbiter, they don’t expect anything modern.
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