Venus

Venus
Base Data
Radius	302.6 kilometers
Gravity	8.87 m/s2
Timewarp Height	35–40 kilometers
Color	RGB: 201, 165, 127 HEX: #C9A57F
Atmospheric Data
Atmospheric height	40 kilometers
Curve	13
Upper atmosphere	10.4 kilometers
Orbit Data
Semi-major axis	5410400 kilometers
Eccentricity	0.0
Argument of periapsis	0.0°
SOI radius	64,212 kilometers

Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is well-known for its toxic atmosphere and hot surface. Venus, like Mercury, has no moons.

Venus shares the same characteristics as Earth, since their size, mass and gravity are almost similar to Earth.

Venus has a similar gravity to Earth, so it is as hard to go to orbit to Venus as it is on earth using fuel than it is to go to orbit on Mars or Mercury. Venus is also the planet that has the lowest delta v requirement at 745 m/s when coming from Earth orbit.

What to do on Venus?

See also:

Before 1.5.3, Venus was easy to get there because of the atmosphere, distance and size. However after 1.5.3, aerodynamic heating was added, causing its atmosphere to be able to destroy rockets very easily.

Venus is one of the cheapest planets to get to in the solar system. Coupled with its high mass, it is well-suited for gravity assists: for example, raising the orbit to get to Jupiter or reducing the height of the orbit to get to Mercury or closer to the Sun's surface.

A player wishing to set up a colony on the surface of Venus may want to make a Space Station or fuel depot so that rockets can land and return to Earth easily.

Venus's large mass is enough for rockets to easily get to orbit on. A rocket can go to orbit using more fuel when going the normal way way to get to orbit. A player can also use aerocapture, but it is risky, since its atmosphere is thick.

Atmosphere

Venusian atmosphere

Venus's yellow atmosphere that extends up to 40 kilometers above the surface and it is five times as thick as Earth's atmosphere. It has clouds that extend up to around 3 kilometers in the air.

Venus's atmosphere is very thick, 5 times as thick as Earth's atmosphere. Landing on it used to be easy, because its thick atmosphere quickly slows down any rocket, but after 1.5.3, its atmosphere can easily destroy any rocket passing through it, with or without a heat shield. Heavy rockets may use some parachutes to slow down the rocket. Venus's atmosphere is thick, so returning from the surface is hard, due to the atmosphere slowing down any rocket passing through.

Its atmosphere is thick so any rocket that travels fast, even if it has a heat shield will burn up immediately. So, try to orbit Venus before landing. The velocity is lower than when you set a trajectory from Earth.

The atmospheric pressure of Venus at different altitudes

Venus's curve is 13. It is not that high compared to Earth's curve at 10.

The atmospheric pressure of Venus decreases by altitude. At 2100 meters, the atmosphere is half as dense as on the surface. The scale height is around 3 kilometers above the surface of Venus. Above 25 kilometers the atmosphere can be slightly felt and it can be used for aerobraking above that point.

Activities

Since Venus's atmosphere is five times as dense as Earth's atmosphere, it is very useful for aerobraking/aerocapture and making descents with parachutes, when the rocket is heavy.

Caution must be taken as traveling at fast speeds into the atmosphere is enough to damage a rocket even with a protective heat shield, so use propulsion instead using its atmosphere for getting to orbit in most missions. This is costly, but effective.

Parachutes on Venus can slow down a rocket by around 0.5 m/s, which is very slow. Try using a smaller parachute.

The high pressure of the atmosphere (and the gravity around 90.4% of that of Earth's) also makes it very difficult to return to orbit. When making a rocket to return from the surface, make sure that it is as aerodynamic as possible, or turn on the No Atmospheric Drag cheat. To lift off of Venus's gravity use high-thrust engines (such as the Hawk engine) and more boosters and/or stages. The boosters/stages can push the rocket higher into the Venusian atmosphere and make it to orbit.

Surface

Venusian surface

Venus’s surface is covered in large volcanoes and mountains that can extend up to two hundred meters into the air. Some are even smaller at a height of less than 100 meters. Some even join together like in the picture on the right. The ground is also covered in small hills and depressions although they are insignificant. Although it may be difficult, landing on top of one of the volcanoes/mountains may be useful for returning to orbit, since the atmosphere is thinner.

Venus has terrain that is very rough. Venus is covered with mountains, steep hills, and all sorts of irregularities on its surface.

Since the terrain is often uneven, surface bases may not work very well, but rovers, landers and atmospheric probes that landed there can operate just fine.

An interesting fact about Venus's terrain is it changes color when you zoom out in physics view, because of the thick atmosphere.

Landmarks

Venus has 3 landmarks. They are Atalanta Planitia, Lavinia Planitia and Maxwell Montes.

Maxwell Montes is the tallest mountain on Venus. It can be a landing site for some spacecraft because of its low pressure.

Atalanta Planitia is a relatively smooth plain on Venus. It has a few mountains and located near the north pole of Venus.

Lavinia Planitia is another plain on Venus. It has several shallow craters and a few hills.

Achievements

There are four achievements that can be obtained on on Venus:

1. Captured into low Venus orbit
2. Entered Venus's upper atmosphere (cannot be obtained by some reason)
3. Reentered Venus's atmosphere, max temperature %temperature%
4. Landed on the surface of Venus

Gallery

A view of Venus' lower and upper atmosphere from a descending spacecraft.

Information

• If Earth is 315 kilometers in size, then Venus would have a size of 299.25 kilometers.
• If scaled to 1:20, Venus would have a size of 302590 metres.
• Its atmosphere is 5× as dense as Earth's, unlike the 93× as dense in real life. It is used probably for ease of access and to avoid parachutes to slow down any rocket to less than 3 m/s and to avoid glitches.

Trivia

• Venus is one of the hardest planets to return from. Doing so may get you recognized as a good player.
• 3.9 billion years ago, when Venus was young, water quickly evaporated on its surface because it was too hot to support liquid water. Venus's water is only in the form of steam and vapor.
  • When the water on Venus evaporated, it caused a runaway greenhouse effect, along with the help of gases from erupting volcanoes, to become the Venus that we know today.
• Venus might have had a moon once, but a planet collided with it, causing its retrograde rotation, and its moon collided back with Venus.
• Venus is named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty.
• Venus's orbit is the least eccentric of any of the planets, with an eccentricity of 0.0068. In the game, its eccentricity is 0.
• The sun rises in the west and sets in the east on Venus. This is also called retrograde rotation.
• Venus's day is longer than its orbital period.
• In real life, Venus's atmosphere is 93 times as dense as Earth's, which is like diving 930 meters below sea level.
• Venus is also called the "sister" of Earth since it shares the same characteristics as that planet.
• Venus is the brightest planet from Earth, with an apparent magnitude of around -4.
  • Because of Venus's brightness, it can cast shadows at night and can even be seen in daylight.
• Due to the thickness of Venus's atmosphere and the clouds that always cover its surface, the planet's surface is not visible from space.
• The texture for rendering the surface of Venus is the same texture for rendering Deimos.
• From 1975 to 1986, Venus was mostly explored by the Soviet Union.
  • In 1970, the Venera 7 probe became the first spacecraft to land on another planet; the second was in 1975 when Venera 9 returned images of the surface; and the third was Venera 13 in 1982, which returned a colored image of Venus on the surface and a sound recording of it.
• Despite landing on Venus, your spacecraft won't melt or get crushed, as such physics have not been scripted into the game.

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