Magellan is the latest in a long series of spacecraft sent to explore the Earth's nearest planetary neighbor, Venus. Previous Venus missions have included 15 Soviet and 6 U.S. spacecraft, starting with Mariner 2 in 1962. Magellan's heritage began with the Venus Orbiting Imaging Radar (VOIR) project, which was canceled in 1982. A scaled-down version of VOIR was reinstated the next year, and it was this project which became Magellan.
Sunday, 01-Aug-2004 00:36:47 CDT
CSR/TSGC Team Web
