vna13_v_bw_o_n (ca. 1982, unnumbered photo of unk orig)

“Venera 13, touched down on the surface of Venus at 03:57:21 UT on March 1, 1982. It landed at 7.55° S, 303.69° E on the rolling hills adjacent to Dolya Tessera east of Navka Planitia. Measurements after landing showed that the atmospheric pressure was 89.5 times that of Earth with a temperature of 465° C (although the interior of the lander was kept at a more comfortable 30° C). Immediately after landing, both telephotometers successfully ejected their covers and started scanning the scene. One of the telephotometers was programed to scan the entire 180° scene successively in clear, red, green and blue detectors – a process that would take almost an hour even with the improved data uplink. In order to return at least a fragment of full-color data in the nominal 30-minute design life of the lander, the other telephotometer was programmed to scan the entire 180° scene first through the clear filter followed by scanning just a 60° segment on the right side (where a 9-centimeter-wide color calibration target was deployed) through red, green and blue filters. Both telephotometers repeated this scanning pattern until contact was lost with its carrier passing 36,000 kilometers overhead.”

After transmitting for a record 127 minutes from the surface of Venus (a record which stands to this day), Venera 13 managed to transmit a total of 11 full panoramas and 10 partial ones. The panoramas were combined to fill in gaps from missing data and create full color views. With the Sun 54° above the horizon (the equivalent solar time of 9:10 AM), about 2.5% of the Sun’s light reached the surface to give an overall orange to yellow appearance to the scene due to the lack of bluer wavelengths penetrating the dense atmosphere. The huge improvement in image quality compared to the earlier Venera 9 and 10 panoramas was apparent with objects as small as a fraction of a millimeter visible at the foot of the lander. The landing site, with rolling ridges visible in the distance, was dominated by flat, layered strata with small rocks and fine grain material eroded from the bedrock filling the hollows. The movement of small grains visible at the foot of the lander between successive scans of the telephotometers were consistent with a gentle (if not very refreshing) breeze with a speed of 0.3 to 0.6 meters per second. Venera 14 repeated this feat four days later landing 950 km southwest of its sister on March 5, 1982. Along with the panoramas returned during the 57-minute active life of Venera 14, these images remain the only color views with have of the surface of Venus even four decades later.”

www.drewexmachina.com/2022/03/01/first-pictures-color-vie...
Credit: Andrew LePage/Drew ExMachina website

“Venera 13 Lander image of the surface of Venus. The lander touched down at 7.5 S, 303 E, east of Phoebe Regio, on 1 March, 1982. It survived on the surface for 2 hours, 7 minutes. The lander was equipped with two opposite-facing cameras. The image is a black and white frame of color image vg261_262. The surface is made up of flat, platy rocks and soil. Parts of the lander and semi-circular lens cover can be seen in the image.”

The above paraphrased from:

nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/imgcat/html/object_page/v13_yg06847.html
Credit: NSSDCA website

The view is from camera no. 1 and is of “side A” of the spacecraft.

And…last, but NOT LEAST, the definitive work WRT Venusian surface imagery, by Donald Mitchell:

mentallandscape.com/C_CatalogVenus.htm

mentallandscape.com/V_Venera11.htm

twitter.com/DonaldM38768041/status/1354514221048840194/ph...

LOOK AT THE “X” LINK…I HAD NO IDEA THAT THIS KIND OF SURFACE RELIEF WAS IMAGED…BY ANY OF THE GODLESS MAGGOT’S VENERA LANDERS!!!
DID YOU??? AMAZING!!!
NOR THE MOVEMENT OF GRAINS OF SOIL DEPOSITED ON THE LANDER - DUE TO SURFACE WINDS!!!

Also thanks to Mr. Mitchell: The pentagonal pennant seen affixed to the saw-tooth festooned landing/impact ring, directly under the jettisoned camera lens cover:

mentallandscape.com/V_Pennants.htm

And, while I’m here, regarding the aforementioned saw-tooth features:

“...metal teeth were added to the periphery of the impact ring in an effort to reduce the spin and oscillation during the descent and prevent the rough landings experienced by the 1978 missions.”

Per Huntress & Marov, “Soviet Robots in the Solar System”, p. 322.

🇷🇺 = 👹

Taken on: December 2, 2023

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