Since arriving at Venus on 11 April 2006, ESA’s Venus Express has provided a wealth of new data and is now keeping the scientists busy interpreting this information and modelling the results (see also ESA Bulletin 124, November 2007). With its design inherited from Mars Express, the Venus Express spacecraft has been performing very well during the two years in Venus orbit, in spite of being bathed in solar radiation four times more intense than at Mars and twice that at Earth.