The Venera (Russian: Венера;) series of probes was developed by the USSR to gather data from Venus. As with some of the USSR's other planetary probes, the later versions were launched in pairs with a second vehicle being launched soon (a week or two) after the first of the pair.
Among the other results, probes of the series became the first man-made devices to enter the atmosphere of another planet, to make a soft landing on another planet, to return images from the planetary surface and to perform high-resolution radar mapping studies of Venus. So, the entire series could be considered as highly successful. Unfortunately, while Venus' orbit is closer to Earth than Mars, its surface conditions were far more extreme, which often meant that the probes did not survive long.
Venera is the Russian name for Venus.
More on [ Venera ]

12 probes to Venus - Summary of the missions including a description of instrumentation and scientific goals. Also includes a gallery of pictures. From NASA's High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center.
14 probes to Venus - Summary of the missions including a description of instrumentation and scientific goals. Also includes a gallery of pictures. From NASA's High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center.
Super70s.com: Venera 7 - Mission profile and picture of the payload.
Venera - History of the program including images and bibliography. From Mark Wade's Encyclopedia Astronautica.
Meta Description: [ Venera space project projects programme program programmes programs spaceflight astronaut cosmonaut biography rocket spacecraft satellite exploration launch vehicle history ]
Venera - Program summary.
Venera - Overview of the program from Wikipedia.
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Venera 13 - Mission overview including images sent back by the probe.
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Venera 9 and 10 - Mission overviews including images sent back by the probes.
Venera Missions to Venus - Spacecraft and mission profiles from the National Space Science Data Center.
Venera Space Probes - Overview of the program.
Venera-1 - Summary of the mission including bibliography.
Venera-7: Survivor of Venusian Crash - Thirtieth anniversary commemoration of the launch of the mission. Includes a mission summary.
Meta Description: [ Thirty years ago, on August 17, 2000, the Soviet Union launched the Venera-7 spacecraft, which was to become the first man-made object to transmit data from another planet. ]
VeneraView - Windows software for browsing the Venera 15 and 16 radar maps. Includes a mission overview and examples from the radar maps.
Meta Description: [ Software for Venera 15/16 SAR experiment ]
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