To place the spacecraft in orbit around Venus, the space agency plans to launch in December 2024, with orbital adjustments scheduled for the following year, when Earth and Venus would be perfectly aligned.
After launching missions to the Moon and Mars, the ISRO is currently preparing a spacecraft to circle Venus in order to research what lurks beneath the solar system’s hottest planet’s surface and also to solve the mysteries behind the Sulfuric Acid clouds that wrap it.
- Somnath, Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), stated during a day-long symposium National Meet on Venus Science, that the Venus mission had been conceptualized, a project report prepared, and “funding found.” He advised scientists to prioritize outcomes with a high potential for impact. “Building and launching a mission to Venus is within India’s competence today,” Mr. Somnath stated in his inauguration address.
The space agency is targeting a December 2024 launch window, with orbital adjustments scheduled for the following year, when the earth and Venus will be placed in such a way that the spacecraft may enter Venus’ orbit with the least amount of propellant possible.
The next comparable window would open in 2031.
Mr. Somnath advised against replicating earlier Venus missions’ experiments and emphasized the need of achieving unique, high-impact outcomes, such as those accomplished by Chandrayaan-I and the Mars Orbiter Mission.
Among the experiments planned are an examination of the surface processes and shallow subsurface stratigraphy, including active volcanic hotspots and lava flows; an examination of the atmosphere’s structure, composition, and dynamics; and an examination of the solar wind’s interaction with the Venusian Ionosphere.
Importance of Venus Mission
Several countries, including the US, are planning to send missions to Venus as they try and understand how it became an inferno. Specialists have long recommended that Venus was once similar to Earth and is in this manner portrayed as it is twin. In any case, its destiny was fixed because of environmental change. As India emerges on the global stage as a champion of low-cost interplanetary missions, Venus is the next destination with plans to explore asteroids in the future. The one-day conference is being held by ISRO to talk about various mission targets for the orbiter and check whether any extra perceptions can be made that might have been missed previously.
Other Missions to Venus
Apart from ISRO’s orbiter mission, Nasa will explore Venus with two spacecraft. The American space agency has set aside about $1 billion to investigate Venus’s inferno planet. The money will be split evenly between two missions, DAVINCI+ and VERITAS, that are scheduled to launch to Earth’s evening star between 2028 and 2030.
The missions’ objective is to determine how Venus became into an inferno-like world despite sharing so many other traits with Earth. Additionally, to Nasa, the European Space Agency has announced a mission to the neighbouring planet. EnVision, a European orbiter, will be the next to circle Venus, delivering a comprehensive picture of the planet from its deep core to its high atmosphere.
Published by – Mohit Maurya
Edited by – Chhavi Chaudhary
