It's 900 degrees hot at the
surface, has powerful high altitude winds,
and is blanketed by a dense carbon dioxide atmosphere.
The planet Venus, although the same size
and density as Earth, the similarities end there.
Earth has water and life.
Venus is desolate,
dry, apparently lifeless.
The DAVINCI mission
named after Leonardo da Vinci will now take us back to Venus
and address unresolved questions about this mysterious planet.
This exciting new mission will launch in June 2029.
During two gravity assist flybys, DAVINCI will study the cloud tops
in ultraviolet light, tracking cloud motions and analyzing
mysterious ultraviolet absorbing chemicals.
Both flybys will also examine nightside heat emanating from the surface.
These geological clues will paint a global picture of surface
composition and its evolution.
Seven months after our second flyby, DAVINCI will release its atmospheric
descent probe, which will enter the atmosphere over the course of two days.
The probe will take about an hour
to fall through the atmosphere, taking measurements down to the surface.
These measurements will include profiles of composition,
winds, temperature pressure and acceleration.
Key gases will help us understand how Venus formed and evolved.
Some of these measurements may even reveal signatures of ancient water.
The spherical probe houses the state of the art instruments
that will work together to address questions about the Venus atmosphere,
protecting them from the extreme temperatures,
high pressures and acidic clouds in the environment.
DAVINCI’s camera peers down through a small viewing port,
and once the probe passes below the clouds, it will start to collect
a series of three dimensional views that will also help us understand
whether the rocks of the Alpha Regio Highland region reveal
a story of an ancient continent shaped by water and an oxygen
sensing student collaboration
experiment will reveal the role of this gas in the deep atmosphere.
The discoveries that emerge from this diverse dataset, will help
tell us whether Venus was once habitable
and the story that we reveal will reach even beyond our solar system
to analog exoplanets that will be observed
with the James Webb Space Telescope.
Venus is waiting for us all
and DAVINCI is ready to take us there and ignite a new Venus renaissance.