Spaceflight Insider
Theresa Cross
June 3rd, 2021
An illustration of the VERITAS orbiter, which was one of two missions selected to study Venus at the end of the 2020s under NASA’s Discovery Program. Credit: NASA
As part of NASA’s emerging area of research, two new missions have been selected to study Venus as part of NASA’s Discovery Program.
The missions, the DAVINCI+ atmospheric probe and the VERITAS orbiter, seek to better understand how Venus changed from being possibly the first habitable planet in our solar system with oceans and near-Earth conditions to an “inferno like world.” These missions were among four potential chosen following a peer-based review process in February 2020 for their feasibility and contribution to scientific discovery.
We re Off to Venus: NASA Will Send Two Missions by 2030
The two new missions will be the first to reach our closest planetary neighbor Venus in over 30 years. A composite of images taken by NASA s Magellan mission. NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA announced on Wednesday, June 3, that it will be sending two missions to Venus by 2030 in a bid to understand how it became the inferno-like world it is today, a post from NASA explains.
In its post, the US space agency describes how Venus, our closest planetary neighbor, may have been the first habitable world in the solar system, complete with an ocean and Earth-like climate.