The launch window for Venus Express was open from 26 October to 23 November 2005, with the launch initially set for 26 October 4:43 UTC. However, problems with the insulation from the Fregat upper stage led to a two-week launch delay to inspect and clear out the small insulation debris that migrated on the spacecraft. It was eventually launched by a Soyuz-FG/Fregat rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on 9 November 2005 at 03:33:34 UTC into a parking Earth orbit and 1 h 36 min after launch put into its transfer orbit to Venus. A first trajectory correction maneuver was successfully performed on 11 November 2005. It arrived at Venus on 11 April 2006, after 153 days of journey, and fired its main engine between 07:10:29 and 08:00:42 UTC SCET to reduce its velocity so that it could be captured by Venusian gravity into a nine-day orbit of . The burn was monitored from ESA's Control Centre, ESOC, in Darmstadt, Germany.
