NASA’s upcoming DAVINCI mission will see a probe descend through the thick, toxic Venus atmosphere to the surface of the planet in mid-2031. Once launched, it will mark the first mission to study Venus using both spacecraft flybys and a descent probe. The flying analytical chemistry laboratory is set to measure critical aspects of Venus’ massive atmosphere-climate system for the very first time.
DAVINCI’s mission’s carrier, relay and imaging spacecraft (CRIS) boasts two onboard instruments that will study the planet’s clouds and map its highland areas during flybys. It will then drop a small descent probe equipped with five instruments that will provide a various new measurements at very high precision during its fall to the hellish Venusian surface. In related news, this is what the BepiColombo Spaceraft sounded like when it flew past Venus.
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This ensemble of chemistry, environmental, and descent imaging data will paint a picture of the layered Venus atmosphere and how it interacts with the surface in the mountains of Alpha Regio, which is twice the size of Texas. These measurements will allow us to evaluate historical aspects of the atmosphere as well as detect special rock types at the surface such as granites while also looking for tell-tale landscape features that could tell us about erosion or other formational processes,” said Jim Garvin, DAVINCI principal investigator from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.