Missions to Venus

In News

Recently, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has announced plans to launch a pair of missions to Venus between 2028 and 2030.

• This would be the first US-led mission to Venus’ atmosphere since 1978.

Objectives and Need

• The missions aim to study the atmosphere and geologic features of Venus and to understand how Venus became an inferno-like world when it has so many other characteristics similar to Earth and may have been the first habitable world in the solar system, complete with an ocean and Earth-like climate.
• Scientists speculate about the existence of life on Venus in its distant past and the possibility that life may exist in the top layers of its clouds where temperatures are less extreme.
  • Both missions are expected to tell scientists more about the planet’s thick cloud cover and the volcanoes on its surface.

About the Missions

• Both missions are part of NASA’s Discovery Program, which began in 1992 to give scientists the chance to launch some missions that use fewer resources and have shorter developmental times. 
• The two selections are a part of the ninth Discovery Program and were made from proposals submitted in 2019.
• NASA has awarded approximately USD 500 million permission for development. Each is expected to launch in the 2028-2030 timeframe.
• DAVINCI+ (Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble Gases, Chemistry and Imaging)
  • It will measure the composition of the dense, hothouse atmosphere of Venus to further understand its evolution.
  • The mission consists of fly-by spacecraft and an atmospheric descent probe that will plunge through the planet’s thick atmosphere, making precise measurements of noble gases and other elements to understand why Venus’ atmosphere is a runaway hothouse compared to the Earth’s.
  • It will host the Compact Ultraviolet to Visible Imaging Spectrometer (CUVIS) built by Goddard.
    • CUVIS will make high-resolution measurements of ultraviolet light using a new instrument based on freeform optics.
    • These observations will be used to determine the nature of the unknown ultraviolet absorber in Venus’ atmosphere that absorbs up to half the incoming solar energy.
  • It is also expected to return the first high-resolution images of unique geological characteristics on Venus called “tesserae” that may be comparable to Earth’s continents. The presence of tesserae may suggest that Venus has tectonic plates like Earth.
• VERITAS (Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography and Spectroscopy)
  • It will map Venus’ surface to determine the planet’s geologic history and understand why it developed so differently than Earth. 
  • Orbiting Venus with a synthetic aperture radar, VERITAS will chart surface elevations over nearly the entire planet to create 3D reconstructions of topography and confirm whether processes such as plate tectonics and volcanism are still active on Venus.
  • It also will map infrared emissions from Venus’ surface that may help in determining the type of rocks that exist on Venus–a piece of information that is not exactly known yet. 
  • It will also determine if active volcanoes are releasing water vapour into the atmosphere.

Source: TH