Probe uses solar panels to 'surf' Venusian atmosphere

Not that powerful really

At the Earth's distance, sunlight is about 1kW per sq. m. At Venus it's about twice that. The solar panels are generating 245 W per sq. m. That's about 12% efficiency.

Make you think

How bloody pointless solar panals are. 5.7 sq meters makes enough to boil a kettle around Venus. Most houses would fit 4 times that on the roof at most, without taking in to account that on most houses only one side is viable for solar.

"evanescent"

Full marks for getting that into a *relatively* ordinary sentence.

AFAIK aerobraking has been used by a number of probes to slow down prior to injection into orbits around planets. Mars I think is the most popular target.

However the process is somewhat hit and miss. Atmospheric density is one of the key parameters you send probes out measure in the first place, and it changes over time (Earth's upper atmosphere can grow *tenfold* due to higher solar activity). Doing a measurement run first means (in principle) future probes can calibrate their degree of braking after the first (light) skimming.

Thumbs up all round. This could change how *all* future space probes are conducted.

Clever...

This could also be a great way to "despin" Reaction Wheels which can be a problem on longer duration flights...

Mind you i would not have wanted to be the mission controller who authorised this if things had gone wrong... Venus express was not cheap and losing it pulling aerodynamic burnouts on Venus would probably not be a healthy career move!

Surfing what?

Perhaps you meant the Venerean atmosphere?