Artist's impression of Venus Express' trajectory

In this image, ESA's Venus Express has now travelled for more than 250 million kilometres – more than half of its way to Venus. During the first week of March 2006, the spacecraft has just crossed the path of the planet around the Sun. Its trajectory will now take it inside the orbit of Venus to ‘anticipate’ the celestial motion of the planet and finally to catch up with it on 11 April 2006.