 venera 9 ( meaning venus 9), manufacturer's designation: 4v-1 no. 660, russianspaceweb.com was a ussr unmanned space mission to venus. it consisted of an orbiter and a lander. it was launched on june 8, 1975 02:38:00 utc and had a mass of 4,936&nbsp;kg (10,884&nbsp;lb). the orbiter was the first spacecraft to orbit venus, while the lander was the first to return images from the surface of another planet.solar system exploration multimedia gallery: venera 9, nasa website, accessed august 7, 2009. ==orbiter== the orbiter consisted of a cylinder with two solar panel wings and a high gain parabolic antenna attached to the curved surface. a bell-shaped unit holding propulsion systems was attached to the bottom of the cylinder, and mounted on top was a 2.4 meter sphere which held the lander. the orbiter entered venus orbit on october 20, 1975. its mission was to act as a communications relay for the lander and to explore cloud layers and atmospheric parameters with several instruments and experiments. it performed 17 survey missions from october 26, 1975 to december 25, 1975. ===list of o
1975_in_spaceflight 1975_in_the_Soviet_Union Derelict_landers_(spacecraft) Guinevere_Planitia_quadrangle Missions_to_Venus Spacecraft_launched_in_1975 Venera_program