The Venera Program consisted of a series of unmanned Soviet planetary probes sent to Venus between 1965 and 1983. Venera 2 flew to within 15,000 miles (24,000 km) of Venus in 1966. A few days later, Venera 3 crash-landed on its surface, becoming the first spacecraft to strike another planet. Later missions analyzed Venus’s atmosphere, made soft landings, and mapped and sent back the first close-up photographs of some of the planet’s surface. What does Venera mean in Russian? Discuss
Source: The Free Dictionary