Le projet Venus-D

Les russes continuent de se remettre à l'exploration planétaire. Après le projet marsien Phobos-Grunt en cours de développement, ils sont en train d'élaborer le projet Venus-D.

Venus-D Project Review in Lavochkin R&D
Venus-D project review was hosted by Lavochkin R&D company. The meeting was attended by RAS Space Research Institute, TSNIIMASH, MAI, other entities.
The mission to Venus undergoes draft design stage now. The system will perform wide range of orbital, atmospheric and surface studies.
The agenda of the meeting covered the main aspects of the mission to Venus, and the payloads.
Venus has a special significance for Russian space exploration. Lavochkin R&D developed Venus stations which contributed essentially into the planet exploration. These stations delivered photos of the Venus surface, data about reentry pressure and temperature, wind speed on the surface. Venus-15, 16 provided the RF-images of the planet covered with clouds and made a map of the surface. Vega-1,2 conducted a set of unique experiments- studied Venus atmospheric circulation, its meteo-parameters, cloud layer, etc.
Venus is still a very interesting space object. RAS Space Research Institute informs that Space Week devoted to Venus exploration will take place on Sept.29-Oct.2.

http://www.roscosmos.ru/NewsDoSele.asp?NEWSID=6775