Another Spaceship Lands On Venus

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31991, 19 May 1969, Page 13

Another Spaceship Lands On Venus

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

MOSCOW, May 18.

For the second time in two days a Soviet spacecraft has parachuted down through the broiling atmosphere of the planet Venus, sending back a stream of valuable data to earth.

But the apparent hopes of Soviet scientists of achieving a new space first yesterday by receiving information direct from the planet’s surface were dashed.

They will have to wait another 16 months before Venus, the nearest planet to Earth, is again in a favourable position for a fresh attempt to unlock secrets which have intrigued scientists and laymen for years. Venus 6 reached the planet after a 220-million mile journey yesterday and—like its sister spacecraft Venus 5 on Friday—disappeared into the planet’s dense carbon dioxide atmosphere on the night side Venus 6, launched five days after Venus 5, in late January, entered the Venusian atmosphere about 190 miles from the earlier space probe.

An official announcement said both craft delivered pennants bearing. bas-reliefs of Lenin and the Soviet coat of arms to the planet’s surface. The data radioed to Earth during their parachute descents through the atmosphere —5l minutes yesterday and 53 minutes on Friday—is expected to help solve some of the unanswered questions about the planet’s chemical composition, pressure, density and temperature. American scientists, whose Mariner 5 craft flew past Venus a few days after the Russian Venus 4, have already concluded that its scorching atmosphere is incapable of bearing life as known on Earth. The Government newspaper “Izvestia,” last night quoted the chief constructor of the Venus craft as saying the latest Venus missions had been successful as they had achieved “the main aim—the descent of two craft through the Venus atmosphere.” In an interview, he clearly implied that what he considered subsidiary aims had not been fulfilled. He did not refer directly to the key question of soft-landing, but con-

firmed that the two latest craft had smaller parachutes than Venus 4, explaining why they took only 53 and 51 minutes rather than 90 minutes to descend through the atmosphere. The constructor said the success of the Venus craft in entering the planet’s atmosphere despite the intense heat and solar activity “gives reason to believe that it would be possible to fly still closer to the sun—to investigate Mercury for example.”