MAGELLAN FAST FACTS

Here are some unusual facts about the Magellan spacecraft and Venus, culled from “The Magellan Venus Explorer’s Guide” and other NASA publications:

Getting Magellan to Venus required three main engines and two rockets on the shuttle that carried it into Earth orbit, two rockets on the inertial upper-stage booster that hurled it toward Venus, and one braking rocket to slow it down for entry into orbit around Venus. But for 99% of Magellan’s 948-million-mile trip to Venus, it cruised without power.

Temperatures and pressures on Venus are equivalent to conditions inside a 900-degree Fahrenheit self-cleaning oven 3,000 feet below the surface of an ocean on Earth.

If Magellan flew over Earth’s Mt. St. Helens volcano, it could recognize it as a mountain. The radar on Soviet Venera 15 and 16 spacecraft, which were launched in 1983, wouldn’t be able to distinguish Mount St. Helens from a meteorite impact crater.

The Soviet Union named two craters on Venus after teacher Christa McAuliffe and astronaut Judith Resnick, who were among seven crew members killed during the 1986 explosion of the U.S. shuttle Challenger.

Magellan’s namesake, 16th-Century explorer Ferdinand Magellan, was killed in 1521 when he got involved in a dispute between warring tribes in the Philippines.

During each orbit around Venus, Magellan will travel about 38,314 miles at an average speed of 12,163 m.p.h.