In the 1970s and 80s, the Soviet Union
put 5 landers on the surface of Venus and they each survived for over 30
minutes. No one has tried it since. From time to time, someone will post to Reddit
pictures from the Venera missions and everyone goes "Nice". And yeah it is pretty cool that these
pictures exist. But have you ever wondered what it took to build a machine capable of taking
those pictures? Like, how did they do it? In this video, I want to look at the
Venera space series and the engineering behind this stunning achievement. Sit back
and enjoy. This is going to be a long one. Let us first talk about Venus. I
cannot imagine a harder place to land on anywhere in the Solar System. Okay,
maybe the Sun. But Venus comes in second. Venus has been called Earth's evil twin. The planet that started off similar to the
Earth but eventually went oh so wrong. The two planets are close
together and are similar in size, but the Venusian atmosphere is as
different as it can get from Earth's. This is due to a runaway greenhouse effect
that has gone on for who knows how long. The Venusian surface gets hotter than Mercury's:
864 degrees Fahrenheit or 462 Celsius. The surface pressure is equivalent to being
over 0.5 miles or a kilometer under water. That thick atmosphere presents special challenges.
Its clouds are made up of sulfuric acid, used in lead acid batteries and as an
industrial cleaner. And you have to survive atmospheric entry, where friction can
heat you up to 11,000 degrees Celsius. The Americans put a dude on the Moon, but they
never tried to put a legit lander on Venus. The Soviets would eventually do it 5 times. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let us
wind the clock all the way back to 1967. As the year was coming to a close, the
Soviets found themselves at a crossroads. Eleven launches to Venus. Eleven failures.
That was the scorecard going on to Venera 4. The mission of the Venera project
(Venera is Russian for Venus) was to land a probe on the Venusian surface.
With the space race in full swing, the Soviets wanted to outdo the Americans by piercing the
Venusian veil. The American capitalists were sending a flyby probe to Venus that was scheduled
to arrive in late 1967. Let’s show them up first. For the Soviets, it was now or never.
After Venera 3 failed to reach the ground, the whole Venera mission was transferred
over to the aerospace company Lavochkin. Venera 4's launch date was set
for the autumn 1967 launch window. Venera 4 was a hefty thing. It stood 11 feet
or 3.5 meters tall. Its bottom lander was essentially a bunch of instruments and a battery
wrapped up in a pressure shell with a parachute. Venera 4 reached Venus in October 1967
and successfully launched its lander. The mother craft released
the probe over the planet and it entered the atmosphere. Temperatures hit
11,000 degrees and entry forces reached 450G. The onboard instruments began analyzing
the atmosphere and sending back data. The first recorded temperature
was 102 degrees Fahrenheit or 39 degrees Celsius. Atmospheric pressure
was about the same as that on Earth. But both measures began rising. And they kept
rising. Quickly. 10 atmospheres. Then 20. It just kept going up. Far higher
than anything engineers anticipated. 93 minutes into the mission, with the probe still
over 27 kilometers above the Venusian surface, Venera 4 cracked open - likely near its
top - and was crushed. The measurements at crush point showed 22 atmospheres and 530
degrees Fahrenheit or 277 degrees Celsius. By now, the American probe
Mariner 5 had also reached Venus. It flew past the planet and sent back data
on the planet's atmosphere and composition. The Soviets and Americans compared their
probes' data and came to the conclusion that Venus was a hotter, drier, far more
hostile planet than anyone had anticipated. As a great American once said,
"You're going to need a bigger boat." This realization required intense
engineering. But with construction for Venera 5 and 6 already finalized
and the 1969 launch date coming up fast, there would be no time to make major
changes. Engineers did what they could to strengthen the landing probe and left
the radical re-design to the next launch. 5 and 6 were sent on a mission
they were not fully prepared for, and the results were similar. Venera 5 transmitted
data for 53 minutes before succumbing to pressures of 27 atmospheres and temperatures of 600
degree Fahrenheit or 320 degrees Celsius. Venera 6 lasted for 51 minutes, but it had gotten
slightly further. Descending 37.8 kilometers into the atmosphere before also getting crushed.
You know what, I am sensing a pattern here. With the 1970 launch window, the program directors were determined to make it to the
Venusian surface. Whatever it takes. And now they knew what it would take. 840
degrees Fahrenheit or 450 degrees Celsius. 100 atmospheres. Burning,
corrosive acid. Let's go! Venera engineers consulted submarine designers
for tips on how to survive deep pressures. They sourced new materials to build it. And they
got a hotter, stronger test chamber to test it. Engineers wanted to maximize the amount
of the time spent on the surface, so they modified the parachute
to make the lander fall faster. When temperatures hit 390 degrees Fahrenheit /
200 degrees Celsius, a restricting cord would melt and the thing would fully open up to
assure a soft landing. A nifty mechanism. The lander was built in the shape of an egg.
Made of titanium, its surface was smooth, with as few ports, welds or
sub-structures as possible. The inside was lined with shock absorber
and an unknown insulation layer. Like with its predecessors, the chamber would
pre-chill to freezing temperatures before entry. After a 4 month journey, Venera 7 reached
the planet on December 1970. It separated from the mother ship and descended into
the atmosphere, transmitting data for 35 minutes through the atmosphere. The parachute at
first worked as intended. Things seemed smooth. But six minutes into stage 2, the chute melted
or tore and the probe dropped like a rock. Venera 7 then unexpectedly hit
the ground at 35 miles an hour or 60 kilometers an hour -
4:42 AM Venus solar time. It hit the Venusian ground (determined to be
harder than sand but softer than pumice) after free-falling and bounced. The signal then abruptly
seemed to have cut out a second after landing. Soviet engineers sadly thought
the probe was crushed to bits. But a few months later, radio
astronomers reviewing the radio data re-discovered the signal, extremely weak
and lost amidst the noise. Incredible luck. As it turned out, Venera 7's bounce had misaligned
the antenna and caused it to come to rest on its side - weakening the signal to 1 or 3% strength.
The probe sat there transmitting data for 23 minutes in temperatures hot enough to melt zinc
or lead until its shell cracked and it too melted. The data sent by Venera 7 (and Venera 8, a
similar design launched two years later in 1972) helped pave the way for a new
generation of Venusian probes. It would not be until 1975 that the
Soviets launched their next series of Venera probes - 5 years after Venera 7. By then, Soviet engineers now knew what to expect,
and designed the two to do more than ever before. And that includes sending back black and
white photographs. In fact, that was the probes' primary goal: Send back the first ever
photographic panorama of the Venusian surface. New rockets developed for propulsion
to the Moon and Mars allowed for bigger probes than ever before. Venera 9 and 10
were 5x heavier than their predecessors, weighing 5 tons or 5,000
kilograms at launch in total. Venera 9 and 10 had an orbiter and
lander component. The entry capsule, the equipment designed to bring the
lander to the surface, was a spherical capsule covered in an asbestos composite. It
would enter the atmosphere, take the heat, and split into half like a plastic easter egg -
ejecting the lander forward to its destination. The lander was magnificently
designed. The six and a half foot (or 2 meter) tall lander was essentially
a hermetically sealed titanium sphere 2.6 feet or 80 centimeters wide with some
peripherals attached. That sphere would hold the instruments and was bolted together
with gold wire seals. Inside, shelves made of beryllium and electric fans would evenly
disperse heat to prevent instrument failure. The sphere's inside would be lined
with a type of polyurethane foam now forgotten. They then wrapped the whole
thing in 5 inches or 12 centimeters of a honeycomb composite insulation
AND another layer of titanium. On the bottom of the lander, they
stuck a shock absorbing ring. At the top, titanium disk that kind of looks
like a hat. That funky hat would serve as an aerobrake that replaced the two-stage
parachute design that so troubled Venera 7. The way it works, the parachute entirely detached
at 30 miles or 50 kilometers above the surface and the aerobrake does the
rest. To see if it worked, Soviet engineers threw it out of an airplane
8.7 miles (NOT 87 mi) or 14 kilometers (NOT 140 kilometers!) above the ground. Two cameras were placed in the middle of the
lander so that they can see both the surface and out into the horizon as far as possible.
Equipped with goldfish bowl lenses, they were protected with a special
pressure window made of pure quartz. The lander sent its image data - 512x128 pixels
large - at a rate of one line every 3.5 seconds. Maybe they should have set up a Starlink
or something. Might have sped things up! Scientists estimated with all of this, the entry
probe would probably last an hour on the surface. Just one hour. But it would
take at least half an hour to send the full panorama, so I guess it was fine. Late October 1975, Venera 9 and
10 arrived and landed as planned. Their parachutes cut at 50 kilometers as
planned and both landers hit the ground at around 15 miles or 25 kilometers per hour. Venera 9 landed first. Touching
down on a slight slope, maybe a hill or the side of a volcanic crater,
and kicking up a bit of dust at landing. One of the two cameras succeeded in
photographing and transmitting their data. Scientists waited. Slowly, the data trickled
in ... revealing our first ever picture of the Venusian surface. What they saw were
sharp rocks, soil, and a distant horizon. It might have looked like a
spot back home, but it wasn’t. These images traveled to us
from a whole different world. The sun was shining bright on Venus that
day, although obscured by the clouds, and there was a gentle breeze blowing. A pleasant
morning. Well, except for the crushing pressures, nearly water-less atmosphere, corrosive
acid and 800 degree temperatures. Venera 10 landed similarly a few days
later but on much more boring terrain. A rolling plain with hardened pieces of
magma. These rocks are much older than those Venera 9 saw. The acidic atmosphere
has had time to chemically scorch them. Both probes transmitted for 50-60 minutes
until their orbiters went out of range. At that point, the temperatures inside the
probes' measured about 140 degrees Fahrenheit or 60 degrees Celsius. They could have kept
going. When they actually died, we don’t know. The orbiters themselves later burned up in the
atmosphere once they completed their mission. Venera 9 and 10 were stunning
successes and represented a triumphant public relations event for
the Soviet Union. They sought a sequel. Venera 11 and 12 would go on to do some
interesting science, but because a mysterious electric anomaly disabled their cameras, their
trips have largely been forgotten. It was a bit of a disappointing follow up to the 9 and 10. But
Soviet scientists geared up for the grand finale. Kind of like the iPhone 11 as compared
to the iPhone X, the Venera 13 and 14 retained the core principles from the 9
and 10 but refined the edges and corners. Engineers improved the cameras,
the scientific instruments, and added new heat-resistant technologies.
They even rated it to last at least 30 minutes down there. Guaranteed or your money back.
And cool, color images can now be taken! The amazing thing was that many of these
sensors and instruments could now mounted outside the spherical pressure chamber. Made of
platinum and covered in acid-resistant enamel, their placement is a testament to
their engineers' understanding of and experience with the
crushing Venusian environment. Venera 13 arrived first, landing as planned.
The lens cap popped off as expected and took two photos. A first contingency photo of
black and white and then another in color. The photos showed a surface of pebbled,
loose soil amidst outcroppings of bed rock, looking similar to the bottom of the ocean. In the distance, rolling plateaus and an orange
sky. The Venusian atmosphere absorbs blue light, so most things will look orange or yellowish. Venera 14's images showed a more weathered
plain with fine-grained rock and far less loose soil. Something like a baked cake. The
rock appears younger, but nobody knows for sure because Venera 14's drill famously drilled
exactly on where the lens cap had landed. The two probes held microphones and sent
back what they heard. Amazingly enough it never really occurred to the Soviets at the
time to release the audio they picked up. You can probably find it on Reddit
somewhere, but after you hear the lens cap blowing off and the drill
drilling, Venus sounds like a gently blowing wind with faint hints of distant
rumblings. Presumed to be Venus-quakes. An amazing Soviet achievement. But
they would be the last landers to touch the Venusian surface. Venera 15 and 16
swapped out the lander component with radar, thereafter mapping the
Venusian topography from orbit. The last Venera landers were built in the 1980s. Space programs since then have shifted to the
Moon and Mars. I suppose there is a justified reason for this. No human is ever going
to set foot on Venus. Well, alive anyway. But it is possible to send another lander
back to the Venusian surface. Engineers know what to expect and that it can be done. The
Soviets did it with decades-old technology. The problem is of course
economics and cost-benefit. There is something weird about
investing so much time and resources into a thing that survives less than a day. And by
weird I mean insane. Most of the Venus exploration proposals have been things like balloons and
other high altitude floating explorations. To make the economics work for a lander, you
have to send something that can get there, move around and last for weeks on end. The
cooling technologies capable of doing that are, to put it lightly, a few years away. Much of the secret work done during the
Soviet era for the Venera series is now lost. But there are some interesting developments
in extreme environment technologies that might make a return trip possible.
Perhaps we can go over that in a future video if this one does well. Let's say 700 likes? Regardless the Venera series was
an amazing engineering achievement and in my opinion represented the
country’s pinnacle of space exploration. I loved researching every bit of this.
This was an amazing piece of research! I grew up during the space race and remember knowing the Soviets were “the other guys we had to beat”. But we (the public, anyway) we focused on the moon and Mars and didn’t give Venus much thought. I see the Soviets definitely did! I’m not sure what they gained from it though. Was it even publicized for propaganda at the time? Seems like it would’ve been a pretty astounding thing to announce.
Thanks for doing this. Keep it up.