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Which View Envisions The Earth As A Holistic System

Venus Express
Venus Express

Forebears/legacy: The mission builds on the success of missions including ESA’s Venus Express (2005-2014); the Soviet Venera Programme (1961-1984); NASA’s Pioneer Venus mission (1978-1992); and NASA’s Magellan Orbiter (1989-1994). For summaries of these missions and their scientific achievements, see ‘Past missions to Venus’. It will also utilise findings from JAXA’s Akatsuki mission, which entered orbit around Venus in 2015. Envision will work in synergy with NASA’s forthcoming VERITAS (Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy) and DAVINCI+ (Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging) missions to provide the most comprehensive study of Venus ever

Dimensions: Envision will be a roughly rectangular three-axis stabilised satellite weighing 2.5 tonnes at launch, measuring approx. 2 m x 2 m x 3 m in stowed configuration, with two deployable solar arrays

Instruments: Envision’s science payload consists of VenSAR, a dual polarisation S-band radar also operating as microwave radiometer and altimeter, which will map the surface of Venus; three optical spectrometers (VenSpec-M, VenSpec-U and VenSpec-H) designed to observe the surface and atmosphere of Venus; and the Subsurface Radar Sounder (SRS), a High Frequency (HF) sounding radar to probe the top kilometre of subsurface. These are complemented by a Radio Science investigation exploiting the spacecraft Telemetry Tracking and Command (TT&C) system to map the planet’s gravity field and constrain its internal structure, and to measure the composition and structure of Venus’ atmosphere

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Selection: The mission was selected by ESA’s Science Programme Committee on 10 June 2021 as the fifth Medium-class mission in the Agency’s Cosmic Vision plan. It was adopted on 25 January 2024.

Launch: Envision is targeting a launch in the early 2030s. The mission is foreseen to launch from ESA’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana on an Ariane 62

Journey and orbit: Envision will reach Venus after a 15-month cruise. After arriving, the spacecraft will spend 15 months aerobraking through Venus’ atmosphere to progressively reach its science orbit, a low Venus quasi-polar orbit, at a variable altitude of between 220 and 540 km and with an orbital period of about 94 minutes.

Lifetime: Total nominal science period of six Venus sidereal days (four Earth years)

Contributions by ESA member states: ASI, DLR, BelSPO and CNES will respectively lead the procurement of the SRS, VenSpec-M, VenSpec-H and VenSpec-U instruments. The radio science experiment is led by institutes in France and Germany. Launch and operations will be supported by ESA’s Mission Operations Centre (MOC) at ESOC (Darmstadt) and Science Operations Centre (SOC) at ESAC (Madrid), with Instrument Operations and operational interfaces distributed across Instrument Teams.

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