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Magellan was deployed by the STS-30R crew and released at 01:01 UT May 5, 1989, from the payload bay of the Space Shuttle Atlantis. The basic bus was assembled using spare parts left over from various prior missions including Voyager, Galileo, Ulysses, and Mariner 9. Magellan was designed to use a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) to map 70% of the Venusian surface down to a resolution of 390 to 985 feet (120 to 300 meters). Magellan, for example, was delayed by at least a year. The Challenger disaster in January 1986 profoundly impacted the shuttle launch manifest into the 1990s, which included a number of planetary missions. Magellan, named after the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan (1480-1521), was the first deep space probe launched by the United States in almost 11 years, and also the first probe launched by a space shuttle. 13, 1994: Contact lost after Magellan was commanded to plunge into the atmosphere of Venus In Depth: Magellan

May 5, 1989: Deployed from cargo bay of Space Shuttle Atlantis First spacecraft to image the entire surface of Venus.First deep space probe launched by a space shuttle.Magellan burned up about 10 hours after being commanded to plunge into the Venusian atmosphere. It was the first spacecraft to image the entire surface of Venus and made several discoveries about the planet.

NASA's Magellan mission to Venus was one of the most successful deep space missions.