DAVINCI & VERITAS - Future NASA Missions to the Venus
DAVINCI Mission:
It was expected to be launched in early 2030s.
DAVINCI is an acronym for "Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging."
Named after visionary Renaissance artist and scientist, Leonardo da Vinci, NASA’s DAVINCI mission will study Venus from above its clouds down to its surface, investigating how the planet and its thick, crushing atmosphere formed and evolved over the past 4.5 billion years.
DAVINCI consists of a spacecraft and a probe. Through a series of flybys, the spacecraft will track the motions of Venus’ clouds and map its surface composition. Two years into the mission, the spacecraft will release a probe that will sample the atmosphere’s chemical makeup, as well as the temperature, pressure, and winds, as it descends to the surface. Once it reaches below the clouds, the probe will take measurements and capture high-resolution images of a unique mountainous region called Alpha Regio, which may be among the oldest surfaces on Venus, offering scientists remote access to rocks that are billions of years old.
Consisting of a flyby spacecraft and descent probe, DAVINCI will focus on a mountainous region called Alpha Regio, a possible ancient continent. Though a handful of international spacecraft plunged through Venus’ atmosphere between 1970 and 1985, DAVINCI’s probe will be the first to capture images of this intriguing terrain ever taken from below Venus’ thick and opaque clouds.
Between 1990 and 1994, NASA’s Magellan spacecraft used radar imaging and altimetry to map the topography of Alpha Regio from Venus’ orbit.
Along with NASA's VERITAS, DAVINCI will be the first American spacecraft since the 1990s to explore Earth's neighboring planet.
The last mission to study the planet’s surface, NASA’s Magellan spacecraft, ended in 1994.
VERITAS Mission:
VERITAS is currently planned to launch no earlier than 2031.
VERITAS is an acronym for "Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy."
Producing high-resolution 3D topographic maps VERITAS would bring into focus structures that have previously been too small to resolve, added Stock. These structures could include raised topography on both sides of strike-slip faults, like the San Andreas Fault, which is an indicator of major tectonic activity. VERITAS would also look for active surface faulting using something called interferometric deformation maps for the first time beyond Earth.
In addition, VERITAS would study vast deformation structures called tessera. These plateau-like features may be analogous to Earth’s continents. A leading theory is that Earth’s continents formed when iron-rich oceanic crust subducted and melted in the presence of water, producing huge volumes of new, less iron-rich continental crust that rose above the ocean.
To determine if Venus’ tessera plateaus formed in a similar way to Earth’s continents, VERITAS would construct the first global multispectral maps of Venus’ surface composition. If their composition resembles that of continental crust, we’d also gain information about Venus’ wetter past.
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