NASA has set a tentative launch date in June 2029 for its DAVINCI mission to Venus, with the probe expected to descend through the planet’s atmosphere and to its surface by mid-2031.
Scientists and engineers have proposed new details about the mission in a recent paper published in The Planetary Science Journal.
Named after renowned artist Leonardo da Vinci, the DAVINCI mission or Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble Gases, Chemistry and Imaging was the first to study Venus using a spacecraft overflight and a landing probe, NASA said.
The agency announced a mission in June 2021 with VERITAS, which will map the planet’s surface from orbit to help determine its geological history.
The mission will measure Venus’s climate system for the first time and will include the first image of a mountain descent on the planet, NASA said.
Jim Garvin, lead author of the research paper and chief DAVINCI researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said the measurements would allow them to detect special types of rocks on the surface and look for signs of erosion.
“No previous mission in the atmosphere of Venus has measured the chemistry or environment with the details that the DAVINCI probe can do,” Garvin said in a statement from NASA.
Venus’ first flight will be six and a half months after the launch, NASA said, and it will take two years for the spacecraft to enter a position to enter the planet’s atmosphere over the Alpha Regio region.
The probe is expected to descend to the surface of Venus in an hour, during which it will receive hundreds of images after emerging from the clouds approximately 100,000 feet or 30,500 meters above the local surface.
With files from Reuters
Add Comment