NASA has selected two new missions to study Venus to understand how Earths nearest planetary neighbour became an inferno-like world when it may have been the first habitable world in the solar system, complete with an ocean and Earth-like climate.
NASA has approved two new missions to study venus, the VERITAS radar mapper, left, and the DAVINCI+ atmospheric probe. Image: Lockheed Martin
Three decades after NASA’s Magellan mission came to an end, the U.S. space agency is returning to cloud-shrouded Venus with two cost-capped Discovery-class missions, one to map the world with a cloud-penetrating radar and another that will plunge into the atmosphere for a dramatic hourlong descent to study its chemical composition.
The missions will be funded at $500 million each and both are expected to launch in the 2028-2030 timeframe.
“We’re revving up our planetary science program with intense exploration of a world that NASA hasn’t visited in over 30 years,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA’s director of space science. “Our goals are profound. It is not just understanding the evolution of planets and habitability in our own solar system, but extending beyond these boundaries to exoplanets, an exciting and emerging area of rese
NASA's Discovery Program will seek out information about our nearest space neighbor Venus in a series of two new missions. The missions are expected to launch
NASA has selected two new missions to study Venus to understand how Earth’s nearest planetary neighbour became an inferno-like world when it may have been the first habitable world in the solar system, complete with an ocean and Earth-like climate.
NASA has selected two new missions to study Venus to understand how Earths nearest planetary neighbour became an inferno-like world when it may have been the first habitable world in the solar system, complete with an ocean and Earth-like .