Short answers, pulled from the story.
Venera 7 was a Soviet spacecraft that landed on Venus on the 15th of December 1970. It became the first spacecraft to execute a successful soft landing on another planet and the first to transmit data from the surface back to Earth.
Venera 7 was launched on the 17th of August 1970 at 05:38 UTC and landed on Venus on the 15th of December 1970 at 05:37:10 UTC.
Venera 7 recorded a surface temperature of 475 plus or minus 20 degrees Celsius. Using that measurement alongside atmospheric models, scientists calculated a surface pressure of 9.0 plus or minus 1.5 MPa.
The parachute opened at 60 kilometers altitude and functioned normally until six minutes after its reefing line melted and expanded the canopy to 2.5 square meters. After that it began to fail and eventually gave out completely, sending the lander into freefall before striking the surface.
Radio astronomer Oleg Rzhiga reviewed the recording tapes weeks after the landing and found another 23 minutes of very weak signals. The spacecraft had likely bounced and landed on its side, leaving its medium-gain antenna misaligned with Earth.
The lander carried temperature and pressure sensors, an accelerometer to measure atmospheric density, and a radar altimeter. The interplanetary bus carried a solar-wind charged-particle detector and a cosmic-ray detector.