Seal of Venera 14
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Mission type | Venus flyby / lander |
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Operator | Soviet Academy of Sciences |
COSPAR ID | 1981-110A 1981-110D |
SATCAT no. | 12939 15600 |
Mission duration | Travel: 4 months and 1 day Lander: 57 minutes |
Spacecraft properties | |
Spacecraft type | 4V-1 No. 761 |
Manufacturer | NPO Lavochkin |
Launch mass | 4,394.5 kg (9,688 lb) |
Landing mass | 760 kilograms (1,680 lb) |
Dry mass | 1,632.71 kilograms (3,599.5 lb) |
Start of mission | |
Launch date | November 4, 1981 | , 05:31:00 UTC
Rocket | Proton-K/D-1 |
Launch site | Baikonur 200/39 |
Orbital parameters | |
Reference system | Heliocentric |
Flyby of Venus | |
Spacecraft component | Venera 14 flight platform |
Closest approach | March 5, 1982 |
Venus lander | |
Spacecraft component | Venera 14 descent craft |
Landing date | March 3, 1982, 07:00:10 UTC |
Landing site | 13°15′S 310°0′E / 13.250°S 310.000°E (east of Phoebe Regio) |
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Venera 14 (Russian: Венера-14 meaning Venus 14) was a probe in the Soviet Venera program for the exploration of Venus.
Venera 14 was identical to the Venera 13 spacecraft and built to take advantage of the 1981 Venus launch opportunity and launched 5 days apart. It was launched on 4 November 1981 at 05:31:00 UTC and Venera 13 on 30 October 1981 at 06:04:00 UTC, both with an on-orbit dry mass of 760 kg.
Each mission consisted of a cruise stage and an attached descent craft.
As the cruise stage flew by Venus the bus acted as a data relay for the lander and then continued on into a heliocentric orbit. It was equipped with a gamma-ray spectrometer, UV grating monochromator, electron and proton spectrometers, gamma-ray burst detectors, solar wind plasma detectors, and two-frequency transmitters which made measurements before, during, and after the Venus flyby.
The descent lander was a hermetically sealed pressure vessel, which contained most of the instrumentation and electronics, mounted on a ring-shaped landing platform and topped by an antenna. The design was similar to the earlier Venera 9–12 landers. It carried instruments to take chemical and isotopic measurements, monitor the spectrum of scattered sunlight, and record electric discharges during its descent phase through the Venusian atmosphere. The spacecraft utilized a camera system, an X-ray fluorescence spectrometer, a screw drill and surface sampler, a dynamic penetrometer, and a seismometer to conduct investigations on the surface.
List of lander experiments and instruments:
After launch and a four-month cruise to Venus the descent vehicle separated from the bus and plunged into the Venusian atmosphere on March 5, 1982. After entering the atmosphere a parachute was deployed. At an altitude of about 50 km the parachute was released and simple airbraking was used the rest of the way to the surface.