altitude of about ; simple air braking was used in the final descent. The lander had cameras to take pictures of the ground and spring-loaded arms to measure soil compressibility. The quartz camera windows were covered by lens caps that popped off after descent. By mischance, Venera 14 measured the compressibility of the lens caps instead of the soil after the lens cap came to rest in the exact place where the probe craned down to measure the soil. The surface soil composition samples were determined by the X-ray fluorescence spectrometer, and were shown to be similar to oceanic tholeiitic basalts. Like its predecessor, the Venera 14 lander was equipped with acoustic microphones designed to record atmospheric noise. The recordings were later used to calculate the average wind speed on the Venusian surface. Subsequent analysis determined the average surface wind speed to be between . The Venera 14 lander functioned for at least 57 minutes (the lander's planned lifespan was 32 minutes) in an environment with a temperature of 465 °C (869 °F) and a pressure of 94 Earth atmospheres (9.5 MPa). Telemetry was maintained by means of the bus, which carried signals from the lander's uplink antenna. Post encounter The spacecraft bus ended up in a heliocentric orbit where it continued to make observations in the X-ray and gamma ray spectrum. The bus activated its engine on the 14th November 1982 to provide data for later Vega program missions. The last published data for the probe is dated 16 March 1983. Fictional references Venera 14 is visited by a Russian cosmonaut in BBC's Space Odyssey: Voyage To The Planets. Image processing American researcher Don P. Mitchell has processed the color images from Venera 13 and 14 using the raw original data. The new images are based on a more accurate linearization of the original 9-bit logarithmic pixel encoding. See also List of missions to Venus References External links Venera program Derelict landers (spacecraft) Spacecraft launched in 1981 1981 in the Soviet Union