The
Venera Program was a two decade long effort by the
Soviet Union to explore
Venus. They wanted
atmosphere data along with
surface maps.
Venera is
Russian for
Venus.
Sixteen spacecraft were sent to Venus between 1961 and 1983. The Soviets were the only ones at to explore Venus, and shared some of their information with the international community.
The Venera Program was the most thorough research program ever done on another planet.
Kind of a waste, huh? It's cool they got the data, but Venus isn't exactly the sort of place we could expl - actually...don't qoute me on that.