Artist's Consception Venus Mapper, Magellan Spacecraft

Artist's conception shows proposed spacecraft for the Venus Mapper (VM), which would use imaging radar to see through Venus' cloud cover to map 90 percent of the planet's surface.  Partially assembled from spare parts of past and future JPL spacecraft missions like Viking, Voyager and Galileo, the VM, if authorized for a new start in 1984, would be ready for launch from NASA's Space Shuttle in 1988.  It would arrive at Venus six months later.

Official NASA Photograph

This postcard is unused.

- - - - - - -

The Magellan spacecraft, also referred to as the Venus Radar Mapper, was a 1,035-kilogram (2,282 lb) robotic space probe launched by NASA on May 4, 1989, to map the surface of Venus by using synthetic aperture radar and to measure the planetary gravitational field.