The Pioneer Venus Multiprobe, also known as Pioneer Venus 2 or Pioneer 13, was a spacecraft launched in 1978 to explore Venus as part of NASA 's Pioneer program. This part of the mission included a spacecraft bus which was launched from Earth.

The first program, which ran from 1958 to 1960, unsuccessfully attempted to send spacecraft to orbit the Moon, successfully sent one spacecraft to fly by the Moon, and successfully sent one spacecraft to investigate interplanetary space between the orbits of Earth and Venus.

The Pioneer Venus mission, consisting of the Pioneer Venus Orbiter (Pioneer 12) and Pioneer Venus Multiprobe (Pioneer 13), was the United States' first long-term mission to observe Venus and studied the structure and composition of the Venusian atmosphere.

The Pioneer Venus Multiprobe (PVM, Pioneer 13) consisted of a bus which carried one large and three small atmospheric probes. The large probe was released on 16 November 1978 and the three small probes on November 20. All four probes entered the Venus atmosphere on December 9, followed by the bus.

Pioneer Venus Small Probe (North) - This spacecraft was the first Small Probe of the Pioneer Venus Multiprobe mission. On this mission four instrumented atmospheric entry probes were carried by a spacecraft Bus to the vicinity of Venus for descent through the atmosphere to the planetary surface.

Released from the carrier vehicle in mid-November 1978, the probes entered the atmosphere at 41,600 km/hr and carried a variety of experiments to measure chemical composition, pressure, density, and temperature of the mid-to-lower atmosphere.

The spacecraft was the Bus portion of the Pioneer Venus Multiprobe mission. On this mission four instrumented atmospheric entry Probes were carried by this Bus to the vicinity of Venus and released for descent through the atmosphere to the planetary surface.

40 Years Ago: Pioneer 11 First to Explore SaturnArticle

Jan 1, 2001 · This article describes the major achievements of the Pioneer Missions and gives information about mission objectives, spacecraft, and launches of the Pioneers. Pioneer was the United States' longest running space program. The Pioneer Missions began forty years ago.

The second part of the series, Pioneer-10 — Pioneer-13, were for exploration of the planets, including specific missions of two Pioneers to Jupiter/Saturn and two Pioneers to Venus. Only these (later) Pioneer (planetary) spacecraft are included here.