Nanaimo Astronaut Patrick Michael Sullivan Pioneering Space Trials of Venus Rover

Working from his Mt. Benson Street home in Nanaimo, astronaut Patrick
Michael Sullivan is pioneering space trials of a new vehicle that will land
on Venus and collect data for NASA.

Sullivan said this is similar to the Mars lander, that was part of the NASA
Mars Surveyor '98 program, which consisted of two spacecraft launched
separately, the Mars Climate Orbiter (formerly the Mars Surveyor '98
Orbiter) and the Mars Polar Lander (formerly the Mars Surveyor '98 Lander).
Mars Polar Lander also conveyed the Deep Space 2 surface-penetrator mission
to Mars. The two missions were designed to study the Martian weather,
climate, water and carbon dioxide levels, in order to understand the
reservoirs, behavior, and atmospheric role of volatiles and to search for
evidence of long-term and episodic climate changes. Communication with the
lander was lost prior to atmospheric entry.


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