PROBA2 helps provide Venus space weather reports

After eight years in orbit, ESA’s Venus Express has completed routine science observations and is preparing for decomissioning by aerobraking into Venus' atmosphere; Throughout this maneuver the Space Weather Coordination Centre, aided by PROBA2 observations, will be providing regular space-weather reports for Venus! This will provide information on conditions that could affect the satellite trajectory during the maneuver.

"Aerobraking means lowering the spacecraft so that for part of each orbit it dips down very low and skims through the very uppermost reaches of the Venusian atmosphere" (Adam Williams, Deputy Spacecraft Operations Manager).

The maneuver will be performed by ESA and more details can be found here.

An example of the observations by PROBA2 can be seen in the attached image, or for the latest information, here. Each image contains a view of the Sun, from the perspective of Venus (top), supplied by PROBA2/SWAP and the corresponding irradiance activity from LYRA (bottom). On each SWAP image we can see the position of active regions together with their corresponding NOAA reference number. The LYRA irradiance curves include expected irradiance variations at Venus.

For more information visit this ESA page.