IKAROS flew past Venus on December 8
Just after Akatsuki missed entering orbit, another spacecraft, IKAROS, quietly passed by Venus. The IKAROS blog update rate has dropped as the spacecraft has traveled farther from Earth, but they’re still doing pretty regular posts on the position and spin rate of the solar sail mission. On Sunday they posted a trajectory diagram showing its path past Venus, which was bent by the planet’s gravity.Click to enlarge >IKAROS trajectory past ….