Venera: The Incredible Probe that the Soviets Sent to Venus

Venus was the first extraterrestrial body that humans ever probed.

The Soviet Union launched Venera One in 1961 , but it failed to maintain contact with the Earth .

In 1966 , a probe that crashed on the surface of Venus crashed and returned no valuable data.

In 1967 , a mission to Venus successfully measured the planet's atmosphere for the very first time.

It determines that the atmosphere of Venus was primarily of carbon dioxide.

Venera 7 was launched in August 1970 , designed to take up to 180 times earths atmosphere.

The probe continued to function on the surface of Venus , with its data tapes continuing to transmit data back to its mothership for an additional 23 minutes .

This success helped planners to find out that there could never exist any kind of life of any kind on Venus .

In order to achieve this, a series of nine additional probes will be sent to Venus between 1970 and 1983 .

The Veneera probes were beefed up to try and land more complex scientific instruments and cameras.