Future missions to the planet Venus
Venus exploration
The international scientific community urges a study of the planet's atmosphere and surface in situ and a higher resolution mapping that allows us to better understand the surface and solve several unknowns of the planet's past and present. Models of the planet's formation and evolution suggest a more benign past, with the possible existence of oceans of water on the surface. On the other hand, we do not know if it currently has active volcanism or is a dead planet geologically speaking.
At the beginning of June 2021, NASA selected two missions to study Venus within its Discovery Program with different objectives, which should take off between 2028 and 2030. The VERITAS mission is an orbiter that, among other instruments, will carry a synthetic aperture radar for mapping the planet at a resolution of 30 meters, reaching 15 meters in some areas (the Magellan probe reached a resolution of 75 meters in some regions). On the other hand, the DAVINCI+ mission is a capsule that will study the composition of the planet's atmosphere as it descends to the surface, where it is expected to survive for a few minutes.
Within days of NASA's announcement to select two new missions to Venus, ESA has approved the EnVision mission to possibly launch in 2032 or 2033. The mission is an orbiter equipped like VERITAS with a synthetic aperture radar capable of reaching a resolution of 10 meters in some parts of the planet, in addition to several spectrometers for the study of the atmosphere and a radio experiment to analyze the interior of the planet.
Russia has plans to return to the planet and pick up the baton and legacy left by the Soviet Union with the Venera-D mission, but budget problems, the economic crisis and the war with Ukraine mean that it is postponed again and again, so it is unlikely that we will see this probe developed. The new players on the international space scene, China and India, have plans to explore the neighboring planet but have not yet been formally approved.
The Indian space agency ISRO has announced that the mission to Venus will be called Shukrayaan 1 and will be an orbiter that will have numerous instrumentation and great international collaboration. The objective will be the study of the surface and subsoil of the planet, the complex atmosphere and its interaction with the environment and solar wind. Unofficial sources point to the launch window of December 2024-January 2025 as the most likely for the launch of the mission.
The CNSA or Chinese space agency has not made any official announcement regarding the sending of a probe to the study of Venus, but at a conference in Shanghai a model of a probe for the study of the planet could be seen shown by CASC, the main contractor of the Chinese space agency. The probe would consist of an orbiter and a hot air balloon and is being considered in the middle of this decade, as the expected launch date, although nothing is in development.
Geological history and the possibility of the existence of life on Venus
Scientists believe that Venus may have had water on its surface in the past and that its conditions were not very different from those on Earth. However, a series of catastrophic events transformed Venus into the hot hell it is today. Understanding these processes not only provides us with information about the evolution of Venus, but also offers valuable lessons about planetary dynamics and the evolution and future of Earth-like planets in general.
Having ruled out the possibility of the existence of life on the infernal surface of Venus, the knowledge we currently have about the composition and structure of the planet's atmosphere as well as its thermal gradient indicate the existence of more benign conditions in the lower layer of clouds. At an altitude of about 55 km, temperatures are believed to be between 20 ºC and 30 ºC and half the pressure of sea level. These conditions could be suitable for certain extremophile microorganisms, but to date there is no direct or indirect evidence of the presence of life on the entire planet.
Exploring Venus is not only a feat of engineering and science, but it is also crucial to better understand the diversity of planetary environments in our solar system and beyond. Currently there are multiple exoplanets of the terrestrial type, but it is still too early to decide which of them could have followed the evolutionary path of Venus, to the hell that it currently is or on the contrary like Earth, that have more optimal conditions and appropriate temperatures to have water in a liquid state in a stable form on its surface. The information obtained from missions to Venus can shed light on the habitability of planets and the processes that can lead to such extreme conditions.
About the Creator
Dima Prystupa
With love to poetry, stories, cats, and painting. Spend my days making people happy and safe at their homes with Custom Exterior Innovations. Also like astronomy. Dreaming about the human colony and biofarm in the atmoshpere of Venus.
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