17 It has had many spacecraft visitors

Before attention turned to the exploration of Mars and other planets in the Solar System, Venus was the target that space agencies wanted to send their robotic missions to. This genesis of interplanetary exploration began with a lot of spacecraft and launch failures, starting with the Soviet Union’s Tyazhely Sputnik in February 1961.

The first craft to aim for Venus experienced a launch failure, and there have since been 41 other missions launched with the intention to explore the planet. Of these missions, over 20 have been successful, and the first of these to conduct a successful planetary encounter was NASA’s Mariner 2 space probe on 14 December 1962.