News DAVINCI+ and VERITAS thread. New NASA missions to Venus

[Owenmck]

Yesterday, NASA announced two new missions to Venus, the first in over 30 years. These missions are called DAVINCI+ and VERITAS.

NASA Selects 2 Missions to Study ‘Lost Habitable’ World of Venus - NASA

NASA has selected two new missions to Venus, Earth’s nearest planetary neighbor. Part of NASA’s Discovery Program, the missions aim to understand how Venus

www.nasa.gov

DAVINCI+
(Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging)
This mission's aim is to measure the composition of Venus' atmosphere, and attempt to determine if it ever had an ocean. This mission will consist of a descent sphere, which will enter Venus' atmosphere and measure gases in the atmosphere as it descends. It will also take hi-res images of the surface.

DAVINCI - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

VERITAS
(Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy)
This orbiter will create surface elevation maps over the whole planet, and will study the planet's historic geology. VERITAS will also map infrared emissions, and determine whether active volcanoes are releasing water vapor into the atmosphere.

VERITAS (spacecraft) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

It seems that both s[spacecraft are planned to launch between 2028-2030. I can't find any info on what launch vehicle they will use.

 

[Gargantua2024]

The launch vehicles aren't specified yet as of today, but I'd like to think the Falcon 9, Vulcan, or Atlas V (if it's still operational) are contenders for the job. Starship is waaayyy too OP for this

 

[GLS]

DAVINCI+
(Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging)

VERITAS
(Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy)

Am I the only one who thinks these naming schemes are silly? ?‍ ?‍

 

[Sbb1413]

This is a great news after all. Venus is not much of an interest to space buffs, compared to the Moon and Mars. However, Joe Scott (a Texan YouTuber from Dallas) ranked it as the coolest (not the coldest) planet in the Solar System, as it will be amazing to "float" over the sea of gases on Venus. However, be aware of clouds made out of H₂SO₄!

Am I the only one who thinks these naming schemes are silly? ?‍ ?‍

I don't think the names as silly. They are intended to spell out the abbreviations of the name without spelling out the individual letters, the latter is more clumsy. "NASA" itself is pronounced NA-suh (NAH-sah in India), instead of EN-ay-ESS-ay. The United Nations follow this tradition as well (United NatIons ChildrEns' Fund is abbreviated UNICEF, pronounced YEW-nih-sef).

 

[cosmonaut2040]

Am I the only one who thinks these naming schemes are silly? ?‍ ?‍

I think so too. Unfortunately this trend is too common. The silliest example, in my opinion, is to call an awesome deep space probe "JUICE"... ?‍

 

[malcontent]

They definitely come up with an acronym first, then figure out which words to fit it after. Also it is early, it could be renamed like the James Webb Telescope

 

[GLS]

ORBITER: Orbital Replica sandBox, with Interface and Totally Entertaining Reality

(sorry for the off-topic)

 

[MaxBuzz]

this means that we have found the third element of life on Venus

 

[Sbb1413]

I think so too. Unfortunately this trend is too common. The silliest example, in my opinion, is to call an awesome deep space probe "JUICE"... ?‍

JUICE = JUpiter ICy-moon Explorer, a Jovian mission planned by the European Space Agency (ESA).

ORBITER: Orbital Replica sandBox, with Interface and Totally Entertaining Reality

(sorry for the off-topic)

Yeah, ORBITER was originally written in all-caps because it was an abbreviation. However, after the release of Orbiter 2010, the use of ORBITER becomes old-fashioned over time. We don't see the use of ORBITER anymore from 2016 till this date.

 

[Owenmck]

JUICE = JUpiter ICy-moon Explorer, a Jovian mission planned by the European Space Agency (ESA).

Yeah, ORBITER was originally written in all-caps because it was an abbreviation. However, after the release of Orbiter 2010, the use of ORBITER becomes old-fashioned over time. We don't see the use of ORBITER anymore from 2016 till this date.

Wait, GLS was serious?

 

[GLS]

Wait, GLS was serious?

I don't think so... unless it turns out to be a martins Easter-egg.

 

[ChrisRowland]

Would be nice to have a probe that could operate at Venus surface temperatures and pressures. Electronics using valves maybe. Or is there a high temperature semiconductor that could operate at 800K? SiC seems to be a possibility. Ceramic circuit boards, tungsten wires?

I see there's an objection to my using C as a symbol for degrees Celsius. it should have been the unicode U+2103 ℃ symbol. Have converted to Kelvin to avoid confusion.

 

[Sbb1413]

Would be nice to have a probe that could operate at Venus surface temperatures and pressures. Electronics using valves maybe. Or is there a high temperature semiconductor that could operate at 500C? SiC seems to be a possibility. Ceramic circuit boards, tungsten wires?

When I was seeing this comment and saw 500C written, I thought he is talking about 500 coulombs. However, after looking at the context, I found that he is talking about 500 degrees C instead.

 

[Sbb1413]

Am I the only one who thinks these naming schemes are silly? ?‍ ?‍

OMONETASHI (Outstanding MOon exploration TEchnologies demonstrated by NAno Semi-Hard Impactor) is yet another example of the naming scheme used by space agencies. OMOTENASHI (おもてなし) means "hospitality" in Japanese, according to Google Translate.

 

[N_Molson]

Well in this case, those are good acronyms.

DA VINCI refers to Leonardo Da Vinci, great engineer of the Italian Renaissance, known as an artist (La Joconde, Musée du Louvre, Paris). He made the schematics for a man-powered flying machine and some kind of helicopter. All he needed was a real engine, human power was simply not enough. So he's the grand grand father of human flight in some way.

VERITAS means "truth" in latin, which is quite relevant for a scientific mission.