NASA’s planetary science program is making a big bet on Venus after decades of placing its chips on Mars in search of clues to past or present life in the solar system.
The bet comes in the form of a double dose of development funding for the Discovery program missions of up to $ 1 billion. Both DAVINCI + and VERITAS were selected in a competitive process from a field of four finalists – leaving behind missions to study Jupiter’s moon Io and Neptune’s moon Triton.
“These two sister missions both aim to understand how Venus became an inferno-like world that can melt lead on the surface,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson in his first State of NASA address on June 2nd . “They will give the entire scientific community the opportunity to study a planet we haven’t been on in more than 30 years.”
The lessons of Venus, exposed to an out-of-control greenhouse effect early in its existence, could improve scientists’ understanding of climate change on our own planet. The missions could also answer one of the Sun’s second rock faces: whether life could exist in the upper reaches of its cloud layer.
Last year, researchers reported signs in Venus’ atmosphere suggesting the presence of a compound called phosphine that may be implicated in biological processes.
In the months since then, questions have been raised about how solid the evidence of life on Venus actually is. The two missions could provide data to support claims about biological activity. They could also be responsible for non-biological processes like volcanism, which can also produce phosphine.
Either way, the two new Discovery program missions, slated to launch in 2028-2030, will be a boon to a cadre of Venus-focused researchers who have long felt neglected.
“I’ve literally pushed for it my entire career,” gushed David Grinspoon, a senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute, in a tweet. “To learn so much about the climate, the history of earth-like worlds and life in the universe. I can’t describe how excited I am. “
Paul Byrne, a planetary scientist at North Carolina State University, tweeted that NASA’s decision to double its missions to Venus was “an INCREDIBLE result” and a big damn thing (to put it family-friendly).
According to a budget analysis by the Planetary Society, NASA spent $ 3.7 billion, adjusted for inflation, on its Venus missions through 2020, compared to the $ 28.5 billion spent on Mars missions over the same period. faded. Total planetary research spending during this period was $ 96.9 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars.
This is how the funding of the Venus missions by NASA looks like over the years compared to the total funding of planetary research (adj for inflation): pic.twitter.com/0kvGnFWgK6
– Casey Dreier (@CaseyDreier) June 2, 2021
Grinspoon noted that NASA’s Magellan orbiter, the last US spacecraft to visit Venus, was launched in 1989 during its senior year in graduate school. Since then, European and Japanese orbiters have been sending back additional information about the climate and atmosphere of Venus. NASA’s two new missions will build on this legacy and add some new twists.
DAVINCI +, for example, was designed to send a spherical probe through Venus’ atmosphere to collect chemical readings at various levels on the way down. The mission – whose acronym stands for “D.eep Athe atmosphere Venus IInvestigation of Nooble gases, C.Hemistry and IMagic – could tell scientists if Venus ever had an ocean.
DAVINCI + images could provide high resolution views of geological features known as “tesserae” that NASA says are comparable to the continents of the world. Such features could shed light on the early geology of Venus and the effects of plate tectonics. The lead investigator is Jim Garvin of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
VERITASwhich is an acronym for “Venus E.Missivity, R.Audio science, InSAR, TOpography And S.Pectroscopy ”will use a synthetic aperture radar sensor to cut through the clouds of Venus and map surface heights in 3D over almost the entire planet. The measured values could show whether processes such as plate tectonics and volcanism are still active.
The orbiter will also map Venus’ infrared emissions – which could help scientists narrow down the planet’s surface composition and determine if active volcanoes are emitting water vapor into the atmosphere. Suzanne Smrekar of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory is the mission’s lead investigator.
VERITAS includes the German Aerospace Center, the Italian Space Agency and the French Center National d’Etudes Spatiales. Lockheed Martin will build the spacecraft for DAVINCI + and VERITAS.
Artistic representations show the space probe VERITAS (left) and the probe DAVINCI + (right) on their arrival on Venus. Photo credit: Lockheed Martin.
NASA has selected two technology demonstrations to piggyback the two selected missions. VERITAS will host the Deep Space Atomic Clock-2, a prototype for a new generation of ultra-precise clocks for space missions. DAVINCI + will be carrying the Compact Ultraviolet to Visible Imaging Spectrometer (CUVIS), which will perform ultraviolet observations using a new technology. The readings could help scientists figure out why the clouds of Venus absorb so much ultraviolet light.
Further missions to Venus are in the works, although it is not yet clear whether and when they will start. Rocket Lab founder and CEO Peter Beck said last year that he is “working very hard to put together a private mission to fly to Venus in 2023”. Also last year, Breakthrough Initiatives announced it was funding a study to investigate the habitability of the Venusian clouds.
DAVINCI + and VERITAS join a prestigious club of Discovery Program missions that include Mars Pathfinder, the Messenger Mission to Mercury, the Kepler Space Telescope, and the Mars InSight Lander. Two discovery missions with a focus on asteroids – called Lucy and Psyche – are scheduled to start in 2021 and 2022 respectively.
Each of the two newest missions in the Discovery program will be rewarded with approximately $ 500 million in design and development, with launchers yet to be selected.
Mission Statement: The surface features of Venus are revealed in an image based on data from NASA’s Magellan spacecraft and the Pioneer Venus Orbiter. Source: NASA / JPL-Caltech
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