Venera 13

Chronology

Mission timeline

1. October 30, 1981, 06:04 UTC

   Launch

   Launched on a Proton-K booster from Baikonur Cosmodrome

   The launch/orbital information page prints 1981-10-30T06:04:00Z, recorded at minute precision because it prints a whole minute with zero seconds, and both master catalog pages give the same time. The agencies value follows this record's own master catalog page, which prints Funding Agency Unknown (U.S.S.R); the descent craft page for the same mission prints Funding Agency Soviet Academy of Sciences (U.S.S.R), and the disagreement is recorded rather than resolved.

   Earth
2. November 10, 1981

   Milestone

   First mid-course correction

   Both pages record two mid-course corrections, on 10 November 1981 and 21 February 1982, each printed as a full date.

3. February 21, 1982

   Milestone

   Final mid-course correction before Venus

   Both pages record a correction on 21 February 1982, printed as a full date.

4. February 27, 1982

   Deployment

   Descent craft separates from the carrier bus

   The flight platform page records that the descent module separated on 27 February 1982, printed as a full date.

   Venus
5. March 1, 1982

   Landing

   Lands at 7.5 S, 303 E near Phoebe Regio

   The descent craft page records that the parachute was deployed at 63 km altitude, released at 47 km with simple airbraking the rest of the way, that the descent lasted about an hour, and that Venera 13 landed at 03:57:21 UT at 7.5 S, 303 E, just east of the eastern extension of an elevated region known as Phoebe Regio. Carried at day precision from the plunge into the Venus atmosphere on 1 March 1982, which both pages print as a full date, and from the Decay Date of 1982-03-01 on the descent craft's own launch/orbital information page: the sentence that prints 03:57:21 UT prints no date beside it.

   Venus
6. March 1, 1982

   Milestone

   First colour images returned from the surface of Venus

   The descent craft page states that Venera 13 returned the first color images of the surface of Venus, revealing an orange-brown flat bedrock surface covered with loose regolith and small flat thin angular rocks. The wording is quoted from NSSDCA rather than derived here. A mechanical drilling arm obtained a sample whose composition, determined by the X-ray fluorescence spectrometer, put it in the class of weakly differentiated melanocratic alkaline gabbroids, and the acoustic detector returned the sounds of the spacecraft operations and the background wind.

   Venus
7. March 1, 1982

   Flyby

   Carrier bus flies by Venus and relays the descent craft's data

   The flight platform page records that as it flew by Venus the flight platform acted as a data relay for the brief life of the descent module, and then continued on into a heliocentric orbit; it prints no closest-approach distance. Recorded at day precision because the launch/orbital information page's flyby row prints a closest approach time of 1982-03-01 00:00:00, a midnight placeholder rather than an observed time, and a periapsis of 0.00.

   Venus
8. April 25, 1983

   Mission end

   Last interplanetary data from the flight platform

   The descent craft page records that the lander survived for 127 minutes against a planned design life of 32 minutes, in an environment with a temperature of 457 degrees C and a pressure of 89 Earth atmospheres. The flight platform page records that the engine was fired on 10 June and 14 October 1982 as a test to provide engineering data for the upcoming flyby of Comet Halley by the Vega spacecraft, and that the platform transmitted data from interplanetary space until at least 25 April 1983.

Mission architecture

Vehicles

• Venera 13 Flight Platform · Spacecraft

  Destinations: Venus

  • Venera 13 Descent Craft · Lander · completed

    Destinations: Venus