Venus Express:The SpacecraftVenus Express:The Spacecraft

esa bulletin 124 - november 2005 17

Venus Express Spacecraft

Alistair J. Winton, Ared Schnorhk, Con McCarthy, Michael Witting, Philippe Sivac,Hans Eggel, Joseph Pereira, Marco VernaVenus Express Project Team, ESA Directorate ofScientific Programmmes, ESTEC, Noordwijk, The Netherlands

Frank GeerlingAOCS Sensor Section, ESA Directorate ofTechnical and Quality Management, ESTEC,Noordwijk, The Netherlands

T he Venus Express project began with thefortunate inheritance of a set of sparespacecraft units and an industrial setup

from the Mars Express mission, as it was clearthat this second ‘Express’ mission would onlybe possible both financially and schedule-wise ifnew developments were kept to a minimum.Likewise for the payload, the strong legacyfrom Rosetta and Mars Express in terms of thescientific instruments was equally essential formission success. Another critical factor wasstrict adherence to the spacecraft Assembly,Integration and Test campaign schedule, toensure that the fixed launch window would bemet.

IntroductionThe main technical challenges faced withVenus Express have been the demandingmission requirements coupled with theneed to make maximum reuse of the MarsExpress spacecraft design in order toreduce the development risk. Equallychallenging was the fact that everythinghad to be completed within a very shorttime frame, with the project getting the go-ahead in the autumn of 2002 for a launchin the autumn of 2005.

Consequently, the Venus Expressspacecraft is very similar to Mars Expressin the following areas:• Unchanged system concept, with body

mounted instruments, fixed antennasand a pair of solar arrays mounted onone-degree-of-freedom drive mechanisms.

• Similar structure with only localchanges.

• Fully recurrent propulsion-subsystemand avionics units.

18 esa bulletin 124 - november 2005 www.esa.int

• Similar operational concept, withsteady-state Earth-pointing forcommunications alternated with Venusobservations during specific portions ofthe 24-hour orbit.

There are, however, a number of missionfeatures specific to Venus Express thathave required several design changes:• Some payload instruments not flown on

Mars Express had to be accommodated(VIRTIS, VMC, VeRa and MAG), whilsttwo instruments that were major designdrivers for Mars Express are not presenton Venus Express (Beagle-2 andMARSIS).

• The thermal environment at Venus isquite severe, with twice the solar fluxcompared to Earth, which greatlyrestricts the choice of external materialsfor the spacecraft.

• Since Venus is an inner planet, theEarth–spacecraft–Sun angle can be up to360 deg, leading to the need for a dualHigh-Gain Antenna (HGA) design toensure that a cryogenic radiator coldsurface on the spacecraft can always bepointed away from the Sun.

• The gravity on Venus is 0.81 times thatof the Earth (on Mars it is 0.11) andhence a greater velocity increment(delta-V) is needed for the spacecraft’s

injection into orbit around the planet,requiring the onboard propellant mass tobe increased up to the tank limit.

• Venus is closer to Earth than Mars,allowing a proportional reduction in thesize of the HGA whilst still maintainingthe same performance.

Mechanical FeaturesThe mechanical requirements were drivenby the need to reuse the same mechanicalspacecraft bus as for Mars Express, withminimal design changes to accommodatethe body-mounted 88 kg payload. Theinterface to the Soyuz-Fregat launcher wasunchanged. The maximum spacecraft massfor this launcher was 1270 kg.

Structural FeaturesThe spacecraft’s core structure is ahoneycomb box 1.7 m long, 1.7 m wideand 1.4 m high, reinforced by three shear-walls and connected to a conical LaunchVehicle Adapter. The solar array iscomposed of two symmetrical wings toensure that balanced forces are applied tothe arrays and drive mechanisms duringthe main-engine firing for Venus orbitinsertion. This array design would alsopermit aero-braking if required, for orbitreduction and circularisation.

Four main assemblies were produced insuch a way as to simplify the spacecraftdevelopment and integration process asmuch as possible, namely:

• The propulsion module with the corestructure.

• The ±Y lateral walls supporting thespacecraft avionics and solar array.

• The shear wall and lower and upperfloors supporting the payload units.

• The ±X lateral walls supporting theHGA and radiators.

Propulsion FeaturesA helium-pressurised, bi-propellant,reaction-control system is used for orbitand attitude manoeuvres by either the 400N main engine or banks of 10 N thrusters.This is very similar to Mars Express,except for some pipe routing, which wasmodified due to a change of pyrotechnicvalves. In addition, the propellant load atlaunch was increased to 570 kg due to theincreased delta-V requirement; most of itwill be used during the 53-minute main-engine burn for Venus Orbit Insertion.

Thermal FeaturesIt was clear from the outset that the Venus

Express mission would be very muchdominated by the unique thermal designrequired for this inner planet mission. Thethermal requirements were driven by theworst-case cold conditions when in eclipseand the worst-case hot conditions whenorbiting the planet, whilst also taking intoaccount the fact that the solar flux wouldvary from 1320 W/m2 near Earth to 2655 W/m2 at Venus. Due to the high

Science

Exploded view of the Venus Express spacecraft and its propulsionsystem

esa bulletin 124 - november 2005www.esa.int 19

predicted surface temperatures (up to 250deg), together with an intense ultravioletenvironment, a rapid programme ofthermal design, material selection anddemonstration was instigated. Because ofthe severe schedule constraints, it wasdecided to adopt a conservative margin forthe thermo-optical properties of the chosenmaterials.

The passive thermal control used onMars Express has been retained, but thespacecraft’s external coatings have beenmodified to eliminate multiple reflectionsand avoid solar flux entering the spacecraftdirectly. In particular, Kapton multi-layerinsulation (MLI) covers most of thespsacecraft, while optical solar reflectors(OSRs) are used on the lateral radiatorsand solar arrays, and sulphuric anodisationon the launch-vehicle adapter (LVA) ring’sexternal surface. The heater power has

been increased compared to Mars Express,which at first sight would appear counter-intuitive for a mission to an inner planet,but due to the passive thermal design thereis a cold bias to the satellite. The additionalheating is particularly required during themission’s early cruise phase and duringeclipse.

Electrical FeaturesThe Venus Express electrical architecturesatisfies the needs of an interplanetarymission driven by high-autonomyrequirements due to the lack of real-timecontrol, and the highly variableenvironment in terms of distance, aspectangle, spacecraft attitude, orbit insertionand maintenance, together with the need tocollect and format large volumes ofscience data for return to Earth.

Power subsystemThe spacecraft’s onboard power is managedand regulated by the Power Control Unit(PCU) to provide a +28V regulated mainsupply for use by both the platform andpayload units. Power is distributed to allspacecraft units via a Power Distribution

Venus Express Spacecraft

Views of the top (nadir-facing) and bottom (cryo-radiator) faces of the spacecraft

One of the solar-array wings after a successful deployment test atIntespace in Toulouse (F)

20 esa bulletin 124 - november 2005 www.esa.int

Unit (PDU) that features current limiters forall units. Energy is stored in three low-mass24 Ah Lithium-Ion batteries for useprimarily during eclipse. The pyrotechnicfiring circuits are also within the PDU, withthe necessary power drawn from thespacecraft’s batteries.

The solar-array power output needed nearthe Earth is 800 W, while at Venus it is 1100 W. It was decided at an early stage inthe project that the silicon-based solar cellsused on Mars Express would be unsuitablefor Venus Express due to the wide range oftemperatures that would be experienced bythe arrays, leading to a large voltage rangeincompatible with the PCU. A trade-offstudy showed that gallium-arsenide triple-junction (GaInP2/GaAs/Ge) solar cellswould be the most suitable for VenusExpress. A total of 1056 are mounted on thetwo wings, each with two panels of two sections, giving each wing a mass of20.7 kg.

Science

Pointing manoeuvres in the Venus orbit

The overall schedule for Venus Express

esa bulletin 124 - november 2005www.esa.int 21

Communications subsystem The mission’s Telemetry, Tracking andCommand (TT&C) requirements weredriven by the total volume of scientificdata to be returned, and the operationalrequirements for spacecraft command andtelemetry, spacecraft navigation and radioscience. Compatibility with both the ESATT&C Standards and the NASA Deep-Space Network (DSN) was mandatory toallow cross-agency support.

The configuration of the planets duringthe mission and the need to maintain a coldspacecraft face pointing away from the Sunled to the inclusion of a second smallerHigh-Gain Antenna (HGA2) that will beused for approximately one quarter of themission, centred around inferiorconjunction when the spacecraft will be atits closest to the Earth.

The TT&C subsystem has at its core tworedundant dual-band transponders and twohigh-power 70 W travelling-wave-tubeamplifiers interconnected with a radio-frequency (RF) switching network.

The spacecraft communications systemalso hosts the VeRa radio-scienceexperiment’s high-performance Ultra-Stable Oscillator (USO), which is essentialfor the one-way downlink experiments.

Data-handling subsystem The spacecraft’s data-handling architectureis centred on two Control and DataManagement Units (CDMUs), whichtogether constitute the Data ManagementSystem (DMS), a Remote Terminal Unit(RTU), an AOCS Interface Unit (AIU) anda Solid-State Mass Memory (SSMM).

The main tasks of the CDMUs are:• Decoding of the telecommands from the

ground and ensuring their execution,onboard housekeeping and science-datatelemetry formatting for transmission.

• Execution of DMS software for overalldata management, including the missiontimeline.

• Execution of the attitude and orbitcontrol system software.

The RTU is the interface between the DMSsystem and the payload and platform units.Instructions to these units are passed overone of the two redundant OBDH busses. In

Venus Express Spacecraft

The spacecraft undergoing integration at Alenia in Turin (I)

The spacecraft in the SIMLES facility at Intespace in Toulouse (F)

22 esa bulletin 124 - november 2005 www.esa.int

the return direction, telemetry from thepayload or platform units is gathered bythe RTU for return to the DMS.

The SSMM is a file-based 12 Gbit mass-memory store for housekeeping andscience data collected by the DMS system.However, two of the payloads, VIRTIS andVMC, generate such large volumes of dataat high speed that they have their owndedicated direct links to the SSMM.

Attitude and Orbit Control SubsystemAs the spacecraft is of a fixed-antenna andbody-mounted-instrument design andthere is the need for a main-engine burn toachieve orbit insertion around Venus, theAttitude and Orbit Control System(AOCS) has to provide a high degree ofattitude manoeuvrability. Attitudeestimation is therefore based on star-tracker and gyroscope data. There is also aSun-acquisition sensor for initialorientation of the spacecraft after itsseparation from the Fregat at launch andfor safe modes. Reaction wheels are usedfor most attitude manoeuvres, therebyreducing fuel consumption.

Testing The true ‘express’ nature of the Assembly,

Integration and Test (AIT) activities can beappreciated from the fact that thespacecraft structure was delivered toAlenia’s integration facility in Turin (I) on5 April 2004 and the environmental testcampaign was successfully completed just15 months later, on 2 July 2005.

Following the initial integration of all ofthe platform units, payload units, thermalhardware, spacecraft harness, RFwaveguides and antennas, an IntegratedSubsystem Test was first completed. Thespacecraft was then moved to the Intespacefacility in Toulouse (F) in order tocomplete the system and environmentaltesting close to Astrium, the Venus Expressprime contractor.

Owing to the unique characteristics of aVenus mission and the high solar fluxexperienced, it was necessary to upgradethe solar simulator facility (SIMLES) atIntespace. The solar flux was temporarilyincreased by introducing a removable lensinto the optical path of the simulator,thereby concentrating the solar beam into asmaller area to illuminate the spacecraftwith the higher flux representative of theflight environment.

The first spacecraft Integrated SystemTests were run at Intespace at the end of

November 2004, and the mechanicalvibration and acoustic testing wasperformed immediately after Christmas.These tests showed that the spacecraftshould perform as expected after its rideinto space aboard the Soyuz/Fregatlauncher.

By the spring of 2005, Venus Expresswas ready for the Thermal Balance/Thermal Vacuum test campaign. Theresults of these tests successfullydemonstrated that the spacecraft wouldperform as predicted in the harsh thermalenvironment to be expected around Venus.The spacecraft underwent radiatedElectromagnetic Compatibility (EMC)testing, including an auto-compatibilitytest to demonstrate that when thespacecraft is transmitting to Earth none of its other functions will be affected. In late spring, the System Verification Test performed by ESOC, and a furtherIntegrated System Test, rounded off the successful Environmental TestCampaign. r

Science

The combined stack of the Venus Express spacecraft and Fregat upper stage being readied for launch at the Starsem facilities in Baikonur