ISRO¡¯s Next Mission Will Be To Venus: Orbiter Mission Scheduled For December 2024
The mission has been scheduled for December 2024 with an orbital manoeuvre planned for the year after that, when Earth and Venus would be in close proximity from one another, thus reaching the planet with the minimum use of propellant.
The Indian Space Research Organisation has made the nation proud with its previous Mars and Moon missions (Mangalyaan and Chandrayaan) and is currently working on taking the first Indian into space in a made-in-India spacecraft with the Gaganyaan mission.
Representational image: ISRO
Also Read: ISRO Chandrayaan-3 Mission To Launch In August 2022, Aiming For Moon's South Pole
And it¡¯s not stopping there, as a recent report has now revealed a new target for ISRO¡¯s upcoming mission - Venus -- to study that lies in the depths of the hottest planet of our solar system.
Reported first by PTI, this was revealed by ISRO Chairman S Somnath while addressing a day-long meeting on Venusian science, where he highlighted that the Venus mission has been conceived with a project report formed as well as funds being allocated for it too.
He said in a statement, ¡°Building and putting a mission on Venus is possible for India in a very short space of time as the capability today exists with India.¡±
The mission has been scheduled for December 2024 with an orbital manoeuvre planned for the year after that, when Earth and Venus would be in close proximity from one another, thus reaching the planet with the minimum use of propellant.
The window for the launch is fairly slim as if they fail to launch it by 2024, the only available window will be seven years from then, in 2031.
Somnath has also warned against repeating the experiments that have already been conducted on Venus in previous missions. Instead, he recommends focusing on unique high-impact outcomes, similar to what were achieved by Chandrayaan-1 as well as the Mars Orbiter (Mangalyaan) mission.
NASA
Also Read: Chandrayaan 3 To Gaganyaan: All Upcoming ISRO Missions Of This Year
ISRO has a few experiments already planned for this mission. This includes an investigation of the surface processes and shallow subsurface stratigraphy.
This will include active volcanic hotspots and lava flows, analysing the structure composition and dynamics of the atmosphere as well as investigating solar wind interaction with the Venusian Ionosphere.
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