Magellan (spacecraft)

Magellan was a NASA robotic space probe launched on 4 May 1989 to map the surface of Venus with synthetic aperture radar and to measure the planet's gravitational field. It was the first interplanetary mission launched from the Space Shuttle, the first to use the Inertial Upper Stage booster, and the first spacecraft to test aerobraking as a way of circularizing its orbit. The spacecraft was designed and built by the Martin Marietta Company, while the Jet Propulsion Laboratory managed the mission for NASA and Hughes Aircraft supplied the radar. To save money, much of the probe was assembled from flight spares and reused designs from earlier spacecraft such as Voyager, Galileo and Mariner 9. It entered orbit around Venus in August 1990 and returned radar images that covered nearly the whole surface of the planet before the mission was ended in October 1994.