Magellan

The Magellan spacecraft installed in the payload bay of the shuttle Atlantis. The photograph of the Venus probe and its inertial upper stage booster was taken just before the closure of the doors in readiness for launch.

Orbit of the Magellan space probe around Venus. Initially, the probe was in a 3.26-hour orbit, but after 70 orbits Magellan transferred to an almost circular 90-minute orbit. It succeeded in mapping virtually all of the planet's surface.

NASA space probe to the planet Venus, launched from the space shuttle Atlantis on 4 May 1989. The probe went into orbit around Venus in August 1990 to make a detailed map by radar of 99% of the planet. It revealed the existence of volcanoes, impact craters, and mountains, on the planet's surface.

In October 1994, Magellan was purposely destroyed, entering the atmosphere around Venus, where it burned up.