Mission Profile
Venera 15 was launched on June 2, 1983 at 02:38:39 UTC, and Venera 16 on June 7, 1983 at 02:32:00 UTC. Venera 15 and Venera 16 both reached Venus' orbit (on October 10, 1983 and October 14, 1983 respectively).
The two spacecraft were inserted into Venus orbit a day apart with their orbital planes shifted by an angle of approximately 4° relative to one another. This made it possible to reimage an area if necessary. Each spacecraft was in a nearly polar orbit with a periapsis ~1000 km, at 62°N latitude, and apoapsis ~65000 km, with an inclination ~90°, the orbital period being ~24 hours.
In June 1984, Venus was at superior conjunction and passed behind the Sun as seen from Earth. No transmissions were possible, so the orbit of Venera 16 was rotated back 20° at this time to map the areas missed during this period.
Together, the two spacecraft imaged the area from the north pole down to about 30°N latitude (i.e. approx. 25% of Venus surface) over the 8 months of mapping operations.
Read more about this topic: Venera 4V-2
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