OTD in Space – May 20: NASA Launches Pioneer Venus 1
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Pioneer Venus Orbiter End of Mission, NASA Ames Research Center, October 9, 1992
The Pioneer Venus Orbiter, also known as Pioneer Venus 1 or Pioneer 12, was a mission to Venus conducted by the United States as part of the Pioneer Venus project. Launched in May 1978 atop an Atlas-Centaur rocket, the spacecraft was inserted into an elliptical orbit around Venus on December 4, 1978. It returned data on Venus until October 1992.