How Venus Express outperformed expectations for eight years

It was a hell of a ride to our hellish sister planet. Eight long years of studying Venus is way more than ESA scientists were expected from its mission. Venus Express spacecraft that launched on Nov. 9, 2005 and entered the orbit of its target planet on Apr. 11, 2006, was originally planned to last for 500 days.

The mission was successfully extended three times and ended in slow death while