Venus Express first results - An Overview

International audienceThe Venus Express spacecraft arrives to Venus and will be inserted into orbit on 11 April 2006 Venus Express will carry out an in depth study of the atmosphere of Venus and will study the plasma environment and its intearaction with the solar wind as well as investigating selected surface related topics The paylod is composed of seven instruments ASPERA -an instrument for in situ detection and characterisation of energetic neutral and charged particles MAG - a dual sensor fluxgate magnetometer PFS - an IR Fourier spectrometer VIRTIS - a mapping UV-vis-IR spectrometer Spicav SOIR - an UV-IR stellar and solar occultation spectrometer VMC - a four band wide angle camera and VeRa - a radio science experiment including occultation and bistatic radar functions This paper will give an overview of the mission and briefly summarize the first results from Venus orbit as an introduction to the invited talks to follow by the PIs of the respective instrument