Venus Express mission / / 05-06-2012

04 June 2012 European Space Agency (ESA)

Broadcast content type: Broadcast
Broadcast starts: 05 June 2012 @ 06:30 GMT
Broadcast duration: 00:15:00

The next transmission of the ESA TV Service will be:
ESA TV Exchanges
05-Jun-12 06:30 - 06:45 GMT
REPLAY: 05-Jun-12 15:00 - 15:15 GMT
Venus Express mission

Background information on the transmission:

On June 05, the transit of planet Venus in front of the Sun will be visible form the Earth. An event that only happens twice every 112 years.

Venus, along with Mars, is the Earth's closest planetary neighbour.

The planet symbolises beauty and love in many cultures. Always an object of fascination for astronomers, its transit across the face of the sun has always been a great event and this time there is a big bonus a satellite is circling the planet: Venus Express launched by ESA in 2005.

Venus Express has allowed for an intensive observation giving the scientific community a better understanding of this very hostile planet with a surface temperature of around 400 degrees. Some of Venus mysteries are being unveiled.

This video story explains what we know now about our closest neighbour while at Europe's space astronomy centre, ESAC near Madrid, the team were rehearsing the complex observation of Venus transit in front of the Sun.

For more info on this subject please check the script that is online as a DOC file under :
http://television.esa.int/photos/EbS85771.doc

A WMV preview clip is online under :
http://esatv-movies.e-vision.nl/videos/mplo/Unveiling_Venus_aroll_web_05-30-12_wmplow.wmv

More background information can be found on http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Venus_Express/index.html.

The MPEG-2 files are on the ESA ftp server in the folder entitled :
ftp://esa.contentcoders.com/mpeg2/Unveiling-Venus-30052012/

Transmission details:
Eutelsat 9A at 9 E, transponder 59, downlink frequency 11900.1 horizontally polarised, symbol rate 27,500 FEC 2/3.

For the latest transmission schedule, go to http://television.esa.int.