NASA returns to Venus, even Italy aboard Veritas
NASA announces the launch of two missions to Venus: our country also participates through the Italian Space Agency (ASI)
Italy also flies to Venus.
NASA will send two new missions to Venus to learn more about how the planet's atmosphere has become so hostile throughout its history. This was announced Wednesday by US Space Agency President Bill Nelson.
The two missions, called Davinci + and Veritas with Venus objective, are part of NASA's Discovery Program. This is the first time that the space agency will send dedicated missions to the planet in more than 30 years. Only two NASA missions have visited Venus: Pioneer in 1978 and Magellan in the early 1990s.
The first will focus on the Venusian atmosphere, while the other will map the planet's surface.
Italy also participates in the Veritas mission through the Italian Space Agency (ASI).
THE VERITAS MISSION
By 2030, NASA's Veritas mission (Venus emissivity, radio science, inSAR, topography, and spectroscopy) will leave for Venus to unveil the functioning of the mysterious twin planet of the Earth.
Each mission will receive $ 500 million for development and will launch between 2028 and 2030.
ITALY'S PARTICIPATION IN THE VERITAS MISSION
Italy participates in the Veritas mission through a partnership collaboration between ASI and Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which has assigned to our country the responsibility for the development and construction of three on-board instruments: the Idst transponder (Integrated deep space transponder), necessary to ensure communications and to carry out radio science experiments useful for understanding the planet's gravity; the radiofrequency part of the Visar (Venus Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar), useful for studying the morphology of the planet and the phenomena of volcanism and the Hga (High-gain antenna).
"VERITAS WILL INVESTIGATE THE GEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF VENUS"
"Veritas will investigate the geological history of the planet closest to the Earth, mapping its surface to study processes such as tectonics or volcanism," said Angelo Olivieri from Asi , program manager for Italian participation in Veritas.
"Given the important Italian participation in the mission, it can be said with certainty that Italy will contribute significantly to the main scientific issues of Veritas, without neglecting the technological contribution of the parts of Italian responsibility, which was identified thanks to the experience gained on other important collaborations with JPL such as Cassini and Juso ”.
The mission could also provide new data on the evolution of our planet, helping us to better understand the rocky planets orbiting other stars.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/la-nasa-torna-su-venere-anche-litalia-a-bordo-di-veritas/ on Thu, 03 Jun 2021 13:59:46 +0000.