In June 2029, the space agency’s DAVINCI mission will launch, with the goal of wading through the harsh layers of the atmosphere to the planet’s surface by the end of 2031.
“Our mission will launch in 2029, fly twice around the sun, map Venus each time, and land in June 2031,” said the Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble Gases, Chemistry, and Imaging (DAVINCI).
NASA scientists and engineers have revealed new details about the mission in A Article – Commodity Recently Posted in Journal of Planetary Science. Scientists hope to learn more about the evolution of Venus from a “potentially habitable planet” to a “hot exoplanet”.
“This set of chemical, environmental, and lineage imaging data will paint a picture of Venus’s atmosphere and analyze interaction with the surface in the Alpha Reggio Mountains, which are twice the size of Texas,” said Jim Garvin, lead author and DAVINCI principal investigator at the Goddard Space Flight Center. NASA in a press release.
“These measurements will allow us to assess historical aspects of the atmosphere, as well as detect different special types of rocks at the surface, such as granite, while also looking for landscape features that can tell us about erosion or other formation processes.”
How will scientists obtain these measurements? Use the DAVINCI deep atmosphere probe. According to NASA, this spacecraft is a flying analytical chemistry laboratory that measures key aspects of Venus’s climate system. It will also capture the first images of the mountainous terrain of Venus while mapping its rock formation.
The carrier spacecraft and the mission’s spacecraft have technology that will study the planet’s clouds and map its mountainous regions while in flight.
NASA says it will take two years for the probe to be in position to enter Venus’s atmosphere.
source: NDTV