last year, NASA has been selected about DAVINCI MISSION As part of their Discovery program. Explore the origin, development and condition[{” attribute=””>Venus in unparalleled detail from near the top of the clouds to the planet’s surface. Venus, the hottest planet in the solar system, has a thick, toxic atmosphere filled with carbon dioxide and an incredible pressure of pressure is 1,350 psi (93 bar) at the surface.

Named after visionary Renaissance artist and scientist Leonardo da Vinci, the DAVINCI mission Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging will be the first probe to enter the Venus atmosphere since NASA’s Pioneer Venus in 1978 and USSR’s Vega in 1985. It is scheduled to launch in the late 2020s.

Now, in a recently published paper, NASA scientists and engineers give new details about the agency’s Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging (DAVINCI) mission, which will descend through the layered Venus atmosphere to the surface of the planet in mid-2031. DAVINCI is the first mission to study Venus using both spacecraft flybys and a descent probe.

DAVINCI, a flying analytical chemistry laboratory, will measure critical aspects of Venus’ massive atmosphere-climate system for the first time, many of which have been measurement goals for Venus since the early 1980s. It will also provide the first descent imaging of the mountainous highlands of Venus while mapping their rock composition and surface relief at scales not possible from orbit. The mission supports measurements of undiscovered gases present in small amounts and the deepest atmosphere, including the key ratio of hydrogen isotopes – components of water that help reveal the history of water, either as liquid water oceans or steam within the early atmosphere.

NASA selected the DAVINCI+ (Deep Sea Noble Gas Exploration, Chemistry and Imaging+) mission as part of its discovery program and it will be the first probe to enter the atmosphere of Venus since NASA astronaut Venus in 1978 and the USSR Vega. 1985 Name DAVINCI+’s mission for renaissance artist and scientist Leonardo da Vinci to bring 21st century technology to the next world. DAVINCI+ can show if Earth’s sister planet is like Earth’s twin in the distant past, possibly hospitable to oceans and continents. Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

The mission’s Carrier, Relay, and Imaging (CRIS) spacecraft has two instruments on board that will study the planet’s clouds and map mountainous regions as Venus flies overhead, and will also launch a small five-instrument lander that will provide many new measurements. . with very high accuracy descends to the surface of infernal Venus.

“This dataset on chemicals, environments and origins will paint a picture of the layers of Venus’s atmosphere and how they interact with the surface of the Alpha Reggio Mountains, which are twice the size of Texas,” said Jim Garvin, lead author. From a research article in the Journal of Planetary Science and principal investigator DAVINCI at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “These measurements will allow us to assess historical aspects of the atmosphere, as well as detect specific types of rock on the surface, such as granite, as well as look for features in the landscape that can tell us about erosion or other shaping processes.”

DAVINCI will use three types of Venus Gravity Assistants, which provide fuel by using the planet’s gravity to change the speed and/or direction of the CRIS flight system. The first two gravity assistants will help prepare CRIS for its ultraviolet and near-infrared remote sensing flyby of Venus, generating more than 60 gigabytes of new atmospheric and surface data. The third Venus gravity assist will create a spacecraft to launch a probe for entry, descent, flag and landing, and for subsequent transmissions back to Earth.

The first flyby of Venus will take place six and a half months after launch, and it will take two years for the spacecraft to be able to re-enter the atmosphere over the Alpha region under perfect “noon” illumination to measure the landscape. Venus Venus at a scale of 328 feet (100 meters) to over a meter. These sensors allow landing-style geological surveys in the mountains of Venus without the need for a landing.

The DAVINCI Deep Atmosphere Probe descends through the dense carbon dioxide atmosphere of Venus to the Alpha Regio Mountains. Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

When CRIS is about two days from Venus, the spacecraft’s flight system will launch, along with the three-foot (meter) titanium spacecraft inside it. The probe will begin interacting with the upper atmosphere of Venus at an altitude of 120 kilometers above the surface. The scientific probe will begin scientific observations after the heat shield is removed about 67 kilometers above the surface. With the heat shield removed, the probe inlets could absorb atmospheric gas samples for detailed chemical measurements like those made in[{” attribute=””>Mars with the Curiosity rover. During its hour-long descent to the surface, the probe will also acquire hundreds of images as soon as it emerges under the clouds at around 100,000 feet (30,500 meters) above the local surface.

“The probe will touch-down in the Alpha Regio mountains but is not required to operate once it lands, as all of the required science data will be taken before reaching the surface.” said Stephanie Getty, deputy principal investigator from Goddard. “If we survive the touchdown at about 25 miles per hour (12 meters/second), we could have up to 17-18 minutes of operations on the surface under ideal conditions.”

DAVINCI is tentatively scheduled to launch June 2029 and enter the Venusian atmosphere in June 2031.

“No previous mission within the Venus atmosphere has measured the chemistry or environments at the detail that DAVINCI’s probe can do,” said Garvin. “Furthermore, no previous Venus mission has descended over the tesserae highlands of Venus, and none have conducted descent imaging of the Venus surface. DAVINCI will build on what Huygens probe did at Titan and improve on what previous in situ Venus missions have done, but with 21^st century capabilities and sensors.”

Reference: “Revealing the Mysteries of Venus: The DAVINCI Mission” by James B. Garvin, Stephanie A. Getty, Giada N. Arney, Natasha M. Johnson, Erika Kohler, Kenneth O. Schwer, Michael Sekerak, Arlin Bartels, Richard S. Saylor, Vincent E. Elliott, 24 May 2022, The Planetary Science Journal.
DOI: 10.3847/PSJ/ac63c2

NASA Goddard is the principal investigator institution for DAVINCI and will perform project management for the mission, provide science instruments as well as project systems engineering to develop the probe flight system. Goddard also leads the project science support team with an external science team from across the US. Discovery Program class missions like DAVINCI complement NASA’s larger “flagship” planetary science explorations, with the goal of achieving outstanding results by launching more smaller missions using fewer resources and shorter development times. They are managed for NASA’s Planetary Science Division by the Planetary Missions Program Office at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

Major partners for DAVINCI are Lockheed Martin, Denver, Colorado, The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, California, NASA’s Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia, NASA’s Ames Research Center at Moffett Federal Airfield in California’s Silicon Valley, and KinetX, Inc., Tempe, Arizona, as well as the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.