The Soviet Union planned a series of missions to explore Venus. The Venera 2 spacecraft (“Venera” being the Russian word for Venus) flew by the planet at a distance of 25,000 miles, and its sister Venera 3 impacted the planet just a month later. Venera 3’s sacrifice allowed Russian scientists to catch a glimpse of atmospheric and surface conditions, which allowed the subsequent Venera craft to descend further into the atmosphere, until the Venera 9 craft became the first to make a successful landing.

On this day, October 22, in 1975, the Venera 9 space probe became the first spacecraft to land on the surface of Venus, as well as the first one to survive the surface conditions long enough to transmit images of its immediate surroundings — a blurred picture of rocks.

Because Venus is just the second planet away from the sun, next to the half-molten Mercury, its surface is none too hospitable to humans — or their machines. The surface looks similar to volcanic ground here, but is a little hotter: something like 870 degrees Farenheit, and a surface pressure of 94 Earth atmospheres.