European craft enters final Venusian orbit

A boxy European spacecraft now is looping around Venus in an orbit that will enable its instruments to shed new light on the atmosphere of the cloud-shrouded planet.

Owned and operated by the European Space Agency, the Venus Express spacecraft this week wound up a series of engine firings designed to place it in an operational orbit with high and low points of 41,000 and 155 miles, respectively.

The spacecraft will circumnavigate the planet once each day in that orbit.

Launched Nov. 9 aboard a Russian Soyuz Fregat rocket at Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the ESA spacecraft arrived at Venus and dropped into an initial orbit on April 11.

Flight controllers are continuing systems and instrument checkouts, a process that is expected to be complete on June 4. The spacecraft then is expected to operate in Venusian orbit for about 500 days.