Venus almost seems a little too hot to trot, as far as NASA is concerned.
Earth’s neighbor has temperatures that can melt heavy metal — think a piece of lead dissolving into an oozy mess on Venus’ surface.
Still, the agency has huge plans over the next decade to return to the planet named for the Roman goddess. With its new mission, along with the current Perseverance exploration on Mars, NASA hopes studying both planets’ evolution will give clues about the Earth and its history and future.
“It’s hotter on Venus than on Mercury. Why did Venus form the way it did? Why did Mars form the way it did, from a habitable or not habitable atmosphere? Why did Earth form the way it did? The question is, why are Venus, Earth and Mars different at this point in time?” NASA Langley Research Center Executive Director Clayton Turner said. “Either they are our future or our past. Wouldn’t it be nice to understand those two planets and think about it from that perspective?”
NASA announced the Venus mission, dubbed DaVinci and Veritas, last week during its State of NASA address, delivered by Bill Nelson, the new administrator under President Joe Biden. The former senator from Florida connected with thousands of employees June 2 via livestream from the newly minted Mary W. Jackson headquarters in Washington.
Davinci — which stands for “Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gas, Chemistry and Imaging plus,” — and Veritas are companion missions to probe the inner workings and lost habitable world of Venus, often called Earth’s twin.
“These two sister missions both aim to understand how Venus became an inferno-like world capable of melting lead at its surface,” Nelson said.
Nelson spoke of projects in the pipeline including the Earth system observatory, which is a 3-D modeling system to study earth’s complex climate and environment, what it looks like now, historically and the impacts. Nelson also touched upon the coming Artemis mission to the moon and lauded the NASA staff for its achievements during the pandemic — noting some worked in their kitchens and basements, while others were critically needed on sites.
“In the 15 months … you all have not only landed a rover on Mars, but also supported advances to get us closer to launching the first crude Artemis mission, and in just a few months, the James Webb (Space) telescope, which will see the light from the first galaxies in the early universe after the Big Bang,” he said. “James Webb will be looking back 13,350,000,000 years to capture the light.”
The telescope, which will be a premier observatory over the next decades, is poised for a launch later this fall, according to NASA’s website. The last time NASA ventured to Venus was three decades ago, with the Magellan Orbiter, spokeswoman April Phillips said in an email, adding that in the past 30 years there also have been orbiters from countries in Europe and from Japan.
Back in Hampton, Langley’s role for the Venus mission will focus on its specialty with entry descent, along with teams at Goddard Space Flight Center, Turner said. While NASA missions to explore the solar system have been robotic landings or a “fly by,” NASA is working on a human mission to Mars.
“The precursor to that is returning to the lunar surface to stay, to live and work there, because not only does it enable science for us, it enables us to understand how we will do the same on Mars, which is a lot farther away,” Turner said. “You can’t come home in a few days, so we need to learn and understand how that works.”
Under the Biden administration, NASA’s proposed budget for the current fiscal year is a little more than $24 billion, with Langley on tap to receive $1.11 billion, Turner said.
Officials say the budget is robust and will enable the center to continue crucial contributions to the Artemis mission and Mars exploration. The budget would also cover increased research to understand the Earth, deep space exploration, support demonstrations and innovations in flight and investing in STEM education.
Lisa Vernon Sparks, 757-247-4832, lvernonsparks@dailypress.com