Airborne ultraviolet studies of Venus

Abstract

BECAUSE of the high atmospheric extinction in the ultraviolet at ground level, an airborne platform offers distinct advantage for planetary optical measurements in the wavelength region below 3,500 A. The joint NASA–ESO Space Shuttle simulation programme (ASSESS) provided an opportunity for conducting such measurements aboard NASA's Convair 990 jet aircraft, at an altitude of ∼ 40,000 feet. The following summary of these measurements is a supplement to the published report on the ASSESS experiments1.