ESA Venus Express: Venus Orbit Insertion timeline
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Timeline of events during the Venus Orbit Insertion (VOI) manoeuvre, marking arrival of ESA’s Venus Express spacecraft at its destination on 11 April.
VOI is a series of telecommands, engine burns and manoeuvres designed to slow the spacecraft from a velocity of 29 000 kilometres per hour relative to Venus to an entry velocity some 15 percent slower, allowing it to be captured into orbit around the planet.
Time (CEST) | Event |
09:17 | VEX main engine burn starts Venus Express’s main engine is due to fire for approximately 51 minutes. |
09:45 | Occultation starts (loss of S-band signal) An occultation occurs when Venus Express travels behind the planet so that the line of site to Earth is blocked; it will lose radio contact (S-band) for almost 10 minutes. During the journey to Venus, communication has been in X-band, via the high-gain antenna HGA2. During VOI, communications reverted to S-Band. |
09:55 | Occultation ends Controllers will closely watch for reacquisition of radio contact once the occultation ends. |
10:07 | VEX main engine burn ends |
10:10 | Announcement by Flight Operations Director |
11.07 | X-band transmitter on S-band provides omnidirectional coverage for both up and downlink over small distances, while X-band provides a high-rate data downlink and a telecommand uplink while in Venus orbit. |
11:12 | Telemetry received |
11:30-12:15 | Press Conference |
All times above are ‘Earth Received’ time – i.e. after the actual events
have taken place at the spacecraft. During orbit insertion, the
spacecraft will be 125 000 000 kilometres from Earth and the round-trip
signal time will be 13 minutes and 32 seconds.
