– The goal of these sister missions is to understand how Venus was such an inferno-like world where lead can melt on the surface, says Nelson.
The mission, which has been named DaVinci Plus, will analyze the thick and cloudy atmosphere to find out if there was ever a sea on the surface and if Venus has ever been possible to live on. A small vessel must be sent into the atmosphere to measure the gas level.
The second mission, Veritas, will investigate the geology of the planet and map the rocky surface.
Venus is our closest planet, and has overlooked warts for decades while other parts of the solar system have warts explored. The planned projects will be the first trips to Venus’ atmosphere since 1978.
“We know very little about Venus, but these missions will give us new knowledge about the atmosphere of the planet, which mostly consists of carbon dioxide,” says Nasa researcher Tom Wagner.
A quarter of the missions, which will be launched between 2028 and 2030, will receive $ 500 million from NASA’s development program. They outperformed two other possible projects that would explore Jupiter’s moon Io and Neptune’s frozen moon Triton.
The United States and the Soviet Union sent more spacecraft to Venus in the early years of space travel. The first successful flight past the planet was made by the United States in 1962, while the Soviet Union landed on the planet in 1970.
In 1989, Nasa sent a spacecraft into orbit around Venus, while the European Space Agency (ESA) did the same in 2006.
(© NPK)
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