People Who Put Magellan Into Orbit Around Venus CIRCLING,
circling, circling, Magellan spins around the evening star.
Scanning the Venusian surface and sending a detailed map back to
Earth, in three short years this spacecraft has broadened our
understanding of both planets.Skip to next paragraph Subscribe
Today to the Monitor In "The Evening Star: Venus Observed,"
Henry Cooper offers a unique perspective on the Magellan
program, seen through the lives of the engineers and scientists
working on it. As the book opens, Magellan is preparing to enter
orbit around the second planet. It's a simple, but critical,
maneuver. Magellan must fire its main rocket at the precise
moment to slow itself down, then jettison its main rocket. If
everything doesn't go precisely as planned, the spacecraft will
keep going toward the sun and will not return to Venus for 100
years. The engineers are confident, but anxious. Magellan, after
all, was built from parts left over from other missions. Parts
of the spacecraft are falling ap