Interplanetary¶
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Interplanetary
The Soviet Union maintained a vigorous planetary program during this decade. They attempted four launches to Venus with the Venera series, two launches to Mars with the Phobos series, and sent two vehicles on a duel mission to Venus and Haley’s Comet, the Vega series. The first two Venus launches, Venera 13 and 14 were lander vehicles. Russia always sent their planetary probes in pairs to improve the possibility of success. Both vehicles were launched in 1981, landed on Venus in 1982, and provided the first color pictures of the surface along with the first soil analysis. Venera 13 transmitted from the surface of Venus for 127 minutes while Venera 14 for 57 minutes. The second set of Venus launches, Venera 15 and 16, were radar mapping missions. Both were launched in 1983 and mapped the northern hemisphere of the planet at a 1-2 km resolution. Only in 1988 when the American Magellan spacecraft was launched to Venus did we get a mapping mission at a better resolution. The two Vega spacecraft served three distinct purposes - quite a sophisticated mission. First was to flyby Venus and send a lander to the surface. Second, while the bus vehicle was passing Venus, it would also release a French-built balloon experiment into Venus’ atmosphere. Third, it would flyby Haley’s Comet as a vanguard mission preparing the way for the more sophisticated ESA built Giotti planetary spacecraft. All three missions were carried out successfully by both Vega 1 and 2. Finally, the Soviet Union sent two advanced Phobos proved to Mars in 1988. Unfortunately, both missions experienced problems on the way, and failed to return much useful data on Mars.
Science, Technology, and Earth Applications Satellites
During this time period, Russian continued to improve on its communications, weather and other earth applications satellites. They replenished their communications satellites with the Molniya-3 type, Gorizont, Raduga and Ekran series. They upgraded their weather satellite system from the Meteor-2 series to Meteor-3 series in 1985. Finally, they continued their earth and space science applications with the Prognoz, Okean, Foton and Resurs series of satellites.