Venus is a very hostile world. Its atmosphere contains sulfuric acid and the surface temperatures are high enough to melt lead. But this has not always been the case. Scientists believe that its beginnings were very similar to those of our planet. What happened? Its runaway greenhouse effect makes it an excellent place to study. However, its extreme surface conditions with a temperature of 470 ° C has meant that we have been avoiding our neighboring planet which is only about 40 million kilometers from us.
History
The Magellan orbiter set out on a five-year mission with the goal of creating a radar map of Earth’s infernal twin. In fact, it mapped 98% of its surface before plunging into the dense Venusian atmosphere. Since then, nothing. Fortunately, over the next decade, space activity will revolve around Venus again.
Sonda Shukrayaan-1 de ISRO
The Indian Agency for Space Research wants this space probe to follow in the footsteps of Magellan and map the planet’s surface but with better resolution. Its launch is planned, in principle, for 2024.
DAVINCI + from NASA
NASA’s two missions to Venus are designed to study the planet’s atmosphere and geological features. With a planned launch between 2028 and 2030, the missions have received a budget of $ 500 million each.
The DAVINCI + mission will include an orbiter that will capture images of the planet using ultraviolet and infrared light. It will also drop a small spherical probe into the atmosphere that will sample the atmosphere, including searching for non-reactive noble gases like helium and xenon, which persist for a long time. The probe will descend for about an hour, sampling the atmosphere every 100 meters at lower altitudes and making high-precision measurements to reveal which gases are present.
VERITAS from NASA
This mission will study the planet from orbit, observing mainly with a synthetic aperture radar. You will map the surface of Venus to determine its geological history and understand why it developed so differently from our planet. It will use radar technology to map the elevations of the planet’s surface to create 3D topography maps and confirm whether processes, such as plate tectonics and volcanism, are still active on Venus.
ESA Envision
The European Space Agency will launch, if all goes according to plan, in 2031 a space probe equipped with a high resolution radar to be able to pass through the very thick Venusian clouds and draw a complete map of the surface of our neighboring world.
New United Arab Emirates mission
The UAE has been the last to join the list of nations that will travel to Venus soon. They have announced that they will launch a space mission that would arrive in 2028 to the planet Venus. The intention is to explore the planet before the end of the next decade and land on an asteroid , highlighting its new ambitions months after its first mission to Mars. The spacecraft would orbit Venus and then Earth, using gravity assist maneuvers to hit an asteroid belt object in 2030.
