| The
Venera 13 descent craft/lander was a hermetically sealed pressure vessel,
which contained most of the instrumentation and electronics, mounted on
a ring-shaped landing platform and topped by an antenna. It carried instruments
to take chemical and isotopic measurements, monitor the spectrum of scattered
sunlight, and record electric discharges during its descent phase through
the Venusian atmosphere. The spacecraft utilized a camera system, an X-ray
fluorescence spectrometer, a screw drill and surface sampler, a dynamic
penetrometer, and a seismometer to conduct investigations on the surface.
After launch and a four month cruise to Venus, the descent vehicle plunged
into the Venus atmosphere on 1 March 1982. After entering the atmosphere
a parachute was deployed. At an altitude of 47 km the parachute was released
and simple airbraking was used the rest of the way to the surface. |
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Venera
13 landed about 950 km northeast of Venera 14 at 7° 30'S, 303° E,
just east of the eastern extension of an elevated region known as Phoebe
Regio. The area was composed of bedrock outcrops surrounded by dark, fine-grained
soil. After landing an imaging panorama was started and a mechanical drilling
arm reached to the surface and obtained a sample, which was deposited in
a hermetically sealed chamber, maintained at 30°C and a pressure of
about .05 atmospheres. The composition of the sample determined by the X-ray
flourescence spectrometer put it in the class of weakly differentiated melanocratic
alkaline gabbroids. The lander survived for 127 minutes (the planned design
life was 32 minutes) in an environment with a temperature of 457°C and
a pressure of 84 Earth atmospheres. |
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