The Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging (DAVINCI) mission is currently planned for a 2029 launch, and a recent paper published in The Planetary Science Journal has given us our first look at the mission’s plans.

In 2030, the spacecraft will do two flybys of Venus, during which instruments will study the clouds and map the highlands. And then at the end of 2031, the descent sphere will be dropped into the Venusian atmosphere. That probe carries five instruments that will measure everything they possibly can on the way down to… being crushed at the surface of Earth’s hellscape sister planet.

Lead author Jim Garvin explains: 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.

The probe is going to take only one hour to reach the surface of Venus, and the plan is to collect all the necessary scientific data during the descent. If the probe manages to survive impacting the surface at twelve meters per second, and that’s a big if, operations could continue for another fifteen minutes or so – under ideal conditions, that is. Personally, I expect conditions at the surface of Venus to be less than ideal. Nonetheless, this mission is pretty exciting in a lot of ways, and I’m looking forward to the science that comes out of all that data.

More Information

NASA press release

“Revealing the Mysteries of Venus: The DAVINCI Mission,” James B. Garvin et al., 2022 May 24, The Planetary Science Journal