Abmd70.166
net.columbia
utzoo!decvax!duke!bmd70!jcp
Tue Nov 10 01:38:26 1981
Soviet Venera Launch

The Soviet Union has launched a second Venera soil-analysis mission to
Venus, Venera 14, on November 4th, following Venera 13, on Oct. 30th.

The Venera probe is designed to ingest small paricles of Venusian soil
for analysis internal to the spacecraft.  The target region for the landing
was changed to the lowland area southeast of the Beta Shield volcano region,
using data supplied by the US Pioneer-Venus probe under an information
exchange agreement, the first time the Soviets have openly modified their
scientific program in response to US generated data.

Also on the Venera probe is an X-ray flourescence spectrometer, which should
provide better surface composition data than previous Venera missions, and
an improved imaging system.  The only pictures of the surface of Venus ever
to be transmitted to Earth came from the Soviet Venera 9 and 10 probes.
The Venera 11 and 12 probes failed upon landing on Venus.

Another space related note:

       The State Dept. has withdrawn its proposal to license ARABSAT, an
Arab-League nations satellite TV/communications system, because of the
possible military implications.  ARABSAT members include:
Libya, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Lebanon,
Qatar, Bahrain, Jordan, Iraq, the Sudan, Syria, Algeria, North and South
Yemen, Oman, Tunisia, Morocco, Somalia, Mauritania, Djibout, and The
Palestine Liberation Organization

       The proposed satellite would have provided 8000 telephone
circuits on the C band frequencies, and one S band community televison
frequency, which would probably have been used to rebroadcast the Arab
League TV station program, now originated in Damascus, Syria.

                                               -Joe Pistritto-
                                                jcp@brl

-----------------------------------------------------------------
gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen <[email protected]>
of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/


This Usenet Oldnews Archive
article may be copied and distributed freely, provided:

1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles.

2. The following notice remains appended to each copy:

The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996
Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.