Solar storm impinges on Earth and damages Venus Express
Following an X class flare on 5 March, two more powerful X-class solar flare events were imaged on 6 and 7 March by the European Space Agency’s SOHO spacecraft and NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory. The resulting Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) sent out millions of charged particles in a plasma cloud at a velocity of 2,300km per hour. As a result the Venus Express spacecraft of the European Space Agency (ESA) which is currently in orbit around the planet Venus suffered a temporary “blinding” of its star tracker sensors at 0141GMT on 7 March and these have now been taken out of service. To maintain the spacecraft’s orientation, Venus Express is currently using gyroscopes without reference to star locations.
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