Two missions will study the hellish planet to piece together its climate past, look for volcanoes, and see if it was ever habitable.
NASA Administrator and former astronaut Senator Bill Nelson announced today that the agency would be sending two missions to Venus. The two missions, called DAVINCI+ and VERITAS, will respectively study the planet’s atmosphere and geological history.
“These two sister missions both aim to understand how Venus became an inferno-like world capable of melting lead at the surface,” Nelson said during his State of NASA address. “They will offer the entire science community the chance to investigate a planet we haven’t been to in more than 30 years.”
These two new projects have been awarded $500 million in funding each, and are expected to launch between 2028 and 2030. They were selected from a batch of four possible missions selected by NASA’s Discovery Program in 2020.