Meta description:NASA chose two new Venus study missions to explore how Earth's closest planetary neighbor, when it may have been the world to live on, became an inferno globe.NASA has chosen two new missions to explore Venus in order to learn how Earth's nearest planetary neighbor went from being the first livable world in the solar system to an inferno-like world with an ocean and an Earthlike temperature.
The two missions were chosen from four mission proposals chosen by NASA in February 2020 as part of the agency's Discovery 2019 competition, based on their potential scientific value and the feasibility of their development plans.
The project teams will now focus on finalizing their requirements, designs, and development strategies. The development budget for each mission is estimated to be around $500 million. Each is scheduled to debut between 2028 and 2030.
The project teams will now work to finalize their requirements, designs, and development plans. NASA is awarding approximately $500 million per mission for development. Each is expected to launch in the 2028-2030 timeframe.
The first mission DAVINCI+ (Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging) will measure the composition of Venus' atmosphere to understand how it formed and evolved, as well as determine whether the planet ever had an ocean.
It comprises a descent sphere that will plunge into the thick atmosphere of the Planet and accurately measure noble gases and other elements in order to comprehend why the atmosphere of Venus is an excessively hot house compared to the Earth.
DAVINCI+ will also provide the first high-resolution images of Venus's peculiar geological features known as "tesserae," which are thought to be similar to Earth's continents, implying that Venus has plate tectonics.
The result could shape our understanding of terrestrial planet formation and beyond our solar system. It was the first US-led mission to Venus' environment since 1978.
The principal investigator is James Garvin of Goddard Space Flight Center, located in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Venus' surface is mapped to determine the geological history of the planet by the second VERITAS Mission (Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topographic, Spectroscopy, and Venus' surface).
VERITAS will chart surface elevations with a synthetic opening radar in order to build 3D topographies in Venus and to confirm that processes such as platform tectonics and volcanism are still active.
VERITAS will also map infrared emissions from the surface of Venus to map its unknown rock type and determine whether active volcanoes distribute water vapor to the atmosphere.
The main investigative officer is NASA's Southern California Jet Propulsion Laboratory Suzanne Smrekar.
NASA selected a couple of technology demonstrations to fly along with the two missions. The Deep Space Atomic Clock-2 will host VERITAS, which is built from JPL and funded by NASA's Directorate of Space Technology, while the Compact UltraViolet to Visible Imaging Spectrometer (CUVIS), which was created by Goddard, will be hosting DAVINCI+.
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