This is a list of spacecraft powered by non-rechargeable batteries. While most spacecraft are powered by longer-lasting power sources such as solar cells or radioisotope thermoelectric generators, which can provide power for years to decades, some have been powered by primary (non-rechargeable) electrochemical cells, which provide runtimes of minutes to months. This is typically done only on spacecraft that are planned to operate for only a short time, even if they must travel for a long time before being activated. Some spacecraft classes where this applies are atmospheric probes, short-duration landers, and technology demonstrators. Some early Earth satellites, such as the first Sputnik and Explorer satellites, also used primary batteries, before solar panels were widely adopted.
Atmospheric entry into Venus. Day Probe survived impact and presumably died due to battery exhaustion. There was also a solar-powered bus that entered the atmosphere along with the probes
Veneras 3–6 were atmospheric probes. Venera 3 failed upon entry. Venera 4 failed during descent due to overpressure. Veneras 5 and 6 were originally planned as landers, but changed to atmospheric probes due to learning about Venus's atmospheric pressure. Their parachutes were shrunk to increase descent speed, so as to reach crush depth before battery exhaustion
1970, 1972
Venera 7 and 8 landers
Scientific landers
58 minutes total (Venera 7 actual)[lower-alpha 4][23]>50 minutes after landing (Venera 8 actual, until failure due to environmental conditions)
greater than up to 127 minutes (actual)
Venera 8–14 buses
Most Venera landers' relay craft passed out of radio link range/geometry before the landers overheated or ran out of battery energy, rather than data return duration being limited by overheating as is commonly believed
↑ Year of battery-powered operation, if later than launch year
↑ From either launch or start of battery-powered operation to end of mission due to either battery failure or another cause. If the mission ended due to a cause other than battery failure, battery life is given as ">" (greater than) because the battery could have lasted longer.
↑ Venera 7 separated from its bus after atmospheric entry, at an altitude of 60 km. The parachute failed during descent, and the lander was knocked onto its side upon landing. This caused the radio link geometry to be suboptimal, reducing received signal strength and the duration a given received signal strength could be maintained. It was a few weeks after the landing that it was discovered from analyzing recordings of the received signal that the lander had kept transmitting after landing, but the signal was received too weakly to discern at first.
Space exploration is the use of astronomy and space technology to explore outer space. While the exploration of space is currently carried out mainly by astronomers with telescopes, its physical exploration is conducted both by uncrewed robotic space probes and human spaceflight. Space exploration, like its classical form astronomy, is one of the main sources for space science.
The Venera program was the name given to a series of space probes developed by the Soviet Union between 1961 and 1984 to gather information about the planet Venus.
This is a timeline of Solar System exploration ordering events in the exploration of the Solar System by date of spacecraft launch. It includes:
Tyazhely Sputnik, also known by its development name as Venera 1VA No. 1, and in the West as Sputnik 7, was a Soviet spacecraft, which was intended to be the first spacecraft to explore Venus. Due to a problem with its upper stage it failed to leave low Earth orbit. In order to avoid acknowledging the failure, the Soviet government instead announced that the entire spacecraft, including the upper stage, was a test of a "Heavy Satellite" which would serve as a launch platform for future missions. This resulted in the upper stage being considered a separate spacecraft, from which the probe was "launched", on several subsequent missions.
Venera 1, also known as Venera-1VA No.2 and occasionally in the West as Sputnik 8 was the first spacecraft to perform an interplanetary flight and the first to fly past Venus, as part of the Soviet Union's Venera programme. Launched in February 1961, it flew past Venus on 19 May of the same year; however, radio contact with the probe was lost before the flyby, resulting in it returning no data.
Kosmos 27, also known as Zond 3MV-1 No.3 was a space mission intended as a Venus impact probe. The spacecraft was launched by a Molniya 8K78 carrier rocket from Baikonur. The Blok L stage and probe reached Earth orbit successfully, but the attitude control system failed to operate.
PAO S. P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia, also known as RSC Energia, is a Russian manufacturer of spacecraft and space station components. The company is the prime developer and contractor of the Russian crewed spaceflight program; it also owns a majority of Sea Launch. Its name is derived from Sergei Korolev, the first chief of its design bureau, and the Russian word for energy.
A lander is a spacecraft that descends towards, then comes to rest on the surface of an astronomical body other than Earth. In contrast to an impact probe, which makes a hard landing that damages or destroys the probe upon reaching the surface, a lander makes a soft landing after which the probe remains functional.
Vega 2 was a Soviet space probe part of the Vega program to explore Halley's comet and Venus. The spacecraft was a development of the earlier Venera craft. The name VeGa (ВеГа) combines the first two letters Russian words for Venus and Halley They were designed by Babakin Space Centre and constructed as 5VK by Lavochkin at Khimki. The craft was powered by large twin solar panels. Instruments included an antenna dish, cameras, spectrometer, infrared sounder, magnetometers (MISCHA) and plasma probes. The 4,840 kilograms (10,670 lb) craft was launched on top of a Proton 8K82K rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Tyuratam, Kazakh SSR. Both Vega 1 and 2 were three-axis stabilized spacecraft. The spacecraft were equipped with a dual bumper shield for dust protection from Halley's Comet.
Venera 3 was a Venera program space probe that was built and launched by the Soviet Union to explore the surface of Venus. It was launched on 16 November 1965 at 04:19 UTC from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, USSR. The probe comprised an entry probe, designed to enter the Venus atmosphere and parachute to the surface, and a carrier/flyby spacecraft, which carried the entry probe to Venus and also served as a communications relay for the entry probe.
Venera 7 was a Soviet spacecraft, part of the Venera series of probes to Venus. When it landed on the Venusian surface on 15 December 1970, it became the first spacecraft to soft land on another planet and the first to transmit data from there back to Earth.
Venera 13 was part of the Soviet Venera program meant to explore Venus.
A Moon landing or lunar landing is the arrival of a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon. This includes both crewed and robotic missions. The first human-made object to touch the Moon was the Soviet Union's Luna 2, on 13 September 1959.
A lunar lander or Moon lander is a spacecraft designed to land on the surface of the Moon. As of 2023, the Apollo Lunar Module is the only lunar lander to have ever been used in human spaceflight, completing six lunar landings from 1969 to 1972 during the United States' Apollo Program. Several robotic landers have reached the surface, and some have returned samples to Earth.
Spaceflight began in the 20th century following theoretical and practical breakthroughs by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Robert H. Goddard, and Hermann Oberth. First successful large-scale rocket programs were initiated in Nazi Germany by Wernher von Braun. The Soviet Union took the lead in the post-war Space Race, launching the first satellite, the first man and the first woman into orbit. The United States caught up with, and then passed, their Soviet rivals during the mid-1960s, landing the first men on the Moon in 1969. In the same period, France, the United Kingdom, Japan and China were concurrently developing more limited launch capabilities.
A planetary flyby is the act of sending a space probe past a planet or a dwarf planet close enough to record scientific data. This is a subset of the overall concept of a flyby in spaceflight.
↑ "Reds Say Sputnik's Batteries Worn Out". Argus-Leader. Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Associated Press. October 26, 1957. p.1. Archived from the original on April 23, 2019. Retrieved August 30, 2019– via Newspapers.com.
↑ "Larry Klaes, THE SOVIETS AND VENUS, PART 1, 1993". Archived from the original on 29 September 2015. Retrieved 29 September 2015. Sixty kilometers (thirty-six miles) above the planet, the vessel's main parachute popped free and the probe began transmitting information about the thick night air around it. Then, thirty-five minutes later, VENERA 7 suddenly went silent. Without any warning, something had apparently destroyed the capsule. Soviet controllers back on Earth were shocked. They had thought for certain that this time every possible contingency about Venus had been accounted for with room to spare. Fortunately the controllers had kept tracking and recording the mission even after the apparent signal loss. Several weeks later, a very pleasant discovery was made during a search through the recording tapes: VENERA 7 had reached the Venerean crust intact and continued to send data for twenty-three minutes from the southwestern section of Tinatin Planitia. It seems the capsule had somehow been knocked over upon landing, causing its transmitter antenna to point in an unfavorable direction. The lander's signal strength was only one percent of what it was during the descent through the atmosphere. The lander's transmissions became almost indistinguishable from the regular background radio noise.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
