Indian Venusian Exploration Program

[Mikesingh]

Why's the world interested in Venus?

> Venus spins the opposite way from the other Planets.

> Venus' “day” is very long, 243 Earth days, which is even longer than its year, 225 Earth days!

> The atmosphere spins faster than the planet.

> Its Atmosphere Could Contain Life!
Venus’s surface is nearly 482 °C (900 °F), but between 50 and 60 km (31 and 37 miles) above the surface, the temperature and pressure are like those at Earth’s surface. But what about the sulfuric acid clouds? The microbes could be coated in molecules of eight sulfur atoms (S8) that would be impervious to sulfuric acid. S8 also absorbs ultraviolet light.

The last one is interesting! If India finds traces of life in the atmosphere of Venus, it would be the greatest discovery in the history of mankind!

Here's an interesting read.....

Extraterrestrial Life Revealed On Russian Declassified Secret Photographs Of Venus

https://www.disclose.tv/extraterres...classified-secret-photographs-of-venus-314786

 

[Indx TechStyle]

India’s big space leap; ISRO now readying flight to Venus
ISRO recently announced its plans to undertake a mission to Venus in the early 2020s and has also invited international proposals for scientific payloads.

ISRO now readying flight to Venus

Since the successful inter-planetary mission to Mars in November 2014, India’s civil space organisation, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), has been aiming to do more such missions that would give the agency greater understanding of the solar system while highlighting India’s rising prowess in the outer space domain. The successful Mars mission has given a huge fillip as well as confidence to the Indian scientific community to explore other planets in its quest to gain greater proficiency in deep space communication and other advanced capabilities. During the Mars mission, the deep space communication assistance was provided by the NASA.

After Mars, Venus is considered as the next ideal inter-planetary mission for several reasons. One, Venus is considered as the “twin sister” of the Earth due to similarities in size, mass, bulk composition, density and gravity. Given its closer proximity to the Sun by 30 percent as compared to Earth, solar flux is higher on Venus. Venus is also hotter than Mercury even though Mercury is closer to the sun, due to its thicker atmosphere. Even so, there have been attempts to explore Venus from the 1960s onwards through flyby, orbiter, and even a few lander missions. Russia undertook a total of 16 Venus missions under Venera series between 1961 and 1983.

NASA also undertook several missions starting with its Mariner 2 orbiter in 1962. The last dedicated NASA mission to Venus was in 1990, mapping 98 percent of the Venus surface over four years. Emphasising the importance of these missions, Jim Green, director of NASA’s Planetary Space Division said recently that, “While Venus is known as our ‘sister planet,’ we have much to learn, including whether it may have once had oceans and harbored life. By understanding the processes at work at Venus and Mars, we will have a more complete picture about how terrestrial planets evolve over time and obtain insight into the Earth’s past, present and future.”

NASA and the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Space Research Institute (IKI) have also been in talks recently to undertake a collaborative mission to Venus to be launched sometime in the 2020s. One of the important objectives is to understand the climatic condition of Venus to know the causes of the rampant greenhouse effect in the planet today. The Venera-D mission will have an orbiter and a lander, and maybe even a solar-powered airship that would fly through Venus’ upper atmosphere. The US-Russian collaboration is significant as till date, the Russian Venera spacecraft remains the only one to successfully land on Venus and survive its harsh conditions.

ISRO too appreciates the importance of studying Venus. ISRO’s plans to do a mission to Venus came up first in the budgetary allocations of the Department of Space for the year 2017-18.

ISRO recently announced its plans to undertake a mission to Venus in the early 2020s and has also invited international proposals for scientific payloads. In an “Announcement of Opportunity (AO)”, the ISRO said, “there still exist gaps in our basic understanding about surface/sub-surface features and processes, super rotation of Venusian atmosphere and its evolution and interaction with solar radiation/solar wind.” The mission will have 12 scientific payloads aboard the satellite including a S-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), Advanced Radar for Topside Ionosphere and subsurface sounding, Ultra Violet (UV) Imaging Spectroscopy Telescope, Thermal Camera, Cloud Monitoring Camera, Venus Atmospheric SpectroPolarimeter Airglow photometer and Mass Spectrometer. ISRO’s plans for a Venus is not entirely new. Last year, ISRO had called for space-based experiments proposals from scientists within India. In an earlier AO last year, it said the proposals are invited from those institutions in India that are engaged in planetary exploration studies, development of science instruments for space or willing to develop those experiments.

Traditionally, India did not focus on human space or inter-planetary missions. As the father of the Indian space programme Dr. Vikram Sarabhai and India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru noted, India’s space programme is geared to uplift the lives of its people by focusing on the economic and developmental applications of space programme. Five decades later, as India’s space programme advances, there is a natural progression which has seen a change of tack in its overall orientation. So, in many sense, India’s Mars mission and now the plans for the Venus mission are to be seen as a natural progression for ISRO. These missions will give India and ISRO greater visibility highlighting the agency’s ability to undertake complex and credible missions in an economically competitive manner. This has implications as India enters the global commercial space market as a competitive player able to offer cost-effective launches for new and upcoming players from across the developing world who have similar aspirations as India.

However, ISRO needs to get more innovative about the policy landscape and provide opportunity also to the private sector so that ISRO can focus on larger, common-interest areas such as space exploration which the private sector is unlikely to pursue. Ideally, the private sector should be given a level playing field on the commercial side, with the ISRO playing the role of a facilitator and focusing on more scientifically important areas such as national security, which the private sector will not be suitable for. At the very least, many of the tried and tested programmes such as the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) should be handed over to the private players in a time-bound manner. That said, the ISRO’s Venus plans demonstrate the continued and steady growth and maturation of India’s space capabilities that is rightly a matter of pride for both ISRO and India.

 

[Indx TechStyle]

Shurkrayaan-1 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Indx TechStyle]

“The Venus mission generated a lot of curiosity (17 Indian and 7 Indian proposals received so far) because barely anyone has plans to go to the second planet in the Solar system. The idea is to have an orbiter and a drone-like a probe that would be released from the spacecraft. We hope that the drone would send some information back before being burnt,” said Somak Raychaudhury, director of the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune.

https://www.deccanherald.com/amp/na...to-study-solar-system-black-holes-748212.html
Cool!

 

[Indx TechStyle]

NASA may provide Terahertz devices for Shukrayaan-1

 

[BeEverVectorMan]

In Indian mythology Venus is known as Shukracharya the guru of daanavs and the keeper of Sanjeevani potion

 

[Karthi]

CAD image of Shukrayaan 1.

Shukrayaan will have an orbiter and a drone-like probe that would be released from the spacecraft. The drone would send information back before it being burnt because of extreme temperatures of Venus.


56 Payload proposal s got by now 17 Indian payloads short listed I think , 3 US , 1 Russian , 1 Rus-France also planned

 

[Indx TechStyle]

ISRO to launch its Venus mission in 2025, France to take part

 

[Akula]

ISRO to launch its Venus mission in 2025, France to take part

They shifted this mission from 2023 to 2025.

 

[Indx TechStyle]

They shifted this mission from 2023 to 2025.

I know, 2025 is only window after 2023.

 

[HawkisRight]

They shifted this mission from 2023 to 2025.

Venus mission is not so important for isro..right now their priorities r landing on moon, mars mission (mars is hot property nowadays), HSP so Aditya nd shukrayaan takes back seat

 

[Eva Braun]

In 2017, astronomers, using the James Clark Maxwell ground-based telescope, searched for inert gases or molecules that could be of biological origin in the planet's atmosphere, and, along with other compounds, they were able to find traces of phosphine - a substance consisting only of phosphorus and hydrogen, PH₃. Phosphine is one of the potential biomarker substances - that is, those that may indicate the presence of life on the planet. Two years later, continuing to study the atmosphere of Venus, astronomers again managed to find traces of phosphine and this time to study its distribution in the atmosphere - it turned out that the substance is found mainly in the equator, at an altitude of 53–61 kilometers above the planet's surface. And yet, it is not worth rushing with the statement that life has been found on Venus.

 

[Challenger007]

It seems to me that only travel to this planet can confirm or deny the existence of organics on Venus. Before them, humanity still needs to develop the space industry for a long time, discover new sources of energy that will help spacecraft move at a higher speed and at the same time transport people who can explore the surface of the planet.

 

[Indx TechStyle]

India’s Shukrayaan orbiter to study Venus for over four years, launches in 2024

A not-to-scale representation of ISRO’s Venus orbiter mission Shukrayaan. Credit: ISRO
Shukrayaan will be the first mission to map Venus’ subsurface

MUMBAI, India — India’s space agency aims to launch its Venus orbiter Shukrayaan in late 2024, more than a year later than previously planned, an ISRO research scientist told a NASA-chartered planetary science planning committee Nov. 10.

T. Maria Antonita of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) detailed the status of the mission to scientists drafting a new 10-year plan for NASA’s planetary science program. Shukrayaan will be India’s first mission to Venus and will study the planet for more than four years.

ISRO was aiming for a mid-2023 launch when it released its call for instruments in 2018, but Antonita told members of the National Academies’ decadal survey planning committee last week that pandemic-related delays have pushed Shukrayaan’s target launch date to December 2024 with a mid-2026 backup date (optimal launch windows for reaching Venus occur roughly 19 months apart).

Antonita said Shukrayaan is currently slated to launch on India’s GSLV Mk II rocket. However, she said the team is also evaluating the possible use of the more powerful GSLV Mk III rocket, which would allow Shukrayaan to carry more instruments or fuel. A launch vehicle decision, she said, is expected by the time ISRO freezes the mission’s configuration and final set of instruments in the next three to six months.

In its current configuration, the orbiter weighs about 2,500 kilograms and will carry a science payload consisting of a synthetic aperture radar and other instruments.

Once launched, Shukrayaan is expected to take a few months to reach Venus, where it will enter a highly elliptical orbit of 500 by 60,000 kilometers around the planet. Over the following year, it will use aerobraking to lower its orbit to 200 by 600 kilometers. This polar orbit will be the final one used for scientific observations.

The mission’s primary science objectives are to map Venus’ surface and subsurface while studying the planet’s atmospheric chemistry and interaction with the solar wind.

Shukrayaan’s flagship instrument is an improved version of the dual frequency synthetic aperture radar (SAR) India’s Space Applications Centre built for the Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft currently orbiting the Moon. Antonita said Shukrayaaan’s SAR payload will have up to four times the resolution of NASA’s Magellan orbiter, a Venus mapper launched in 1989. Notably, Shukrayaan will also carry a ground penetrating radar, making it the first to map Venus’ subsurface. These observations would help scientists better understand Venus’ geology and evolution.

Roughly 100 kilograms of Shukrayaan’s 2.5-ton mass is set aside for scientific instruments, according to the call for instrument proposals ISRO issued two years ago soliciting payloads from India and abroad. The open call for instruments marks a return to the approach ISRO took with Chandrayaan-1, the lunar orbiter it launched in 2008 carrying six instruments from countries other than India. The 2013 Mangalyaan Mars orbiter and 2019’s Chandrayaan-2 lunar orbiter and lander, in contrast, carry only Indian instruments.

Of the proposals, 20 candidate instruments have been shortlisted but the session didn’t mention which ones. Antonita did say that Russia, France, Sweden and Germany will have instruments onboard. The French space agency CNES announced in September that the Venus Infrared Atmospheric Gases Linker, or VIRAL, instrument it codeveloped with Russia’s space agency will fly on Shukrayaan.

In addition to its flagship radar, Shukrayaan will also carry an instrument suite capable of spectroscopic observations in infrared, ultraviolet and submillimeter wavelengths to study Venus’ atmosphere, according to Antonita’s slides. The possible detection of phosphine in Venus’ upper atmosphere excited many people about the prospects of life there, although some scientists are still skeptical. According to Antonita, the presence of phosphine and other biomarkers in Venus’ upper atmosphere could be confirmed using the orbiter’s Near Infrared Spectrometer. The instrument will also be used to detect and locate any active volcanism on Venus

Only three spacecraft have orbited Venus in the past 30 years, but space agencies around the world are showing renewed interest in the second planet from the sun. NASA selected two Venus missions earlier this year for further consideration for launch opportunities in 2025 and 2028. The European Space Agency is considering a Venus orbiter mission called EnVision that would launch by the 2030s. And Russia is working on a Venus orbiter and lander mission concept called Venera-D that would launch no earlier than 2023.

 

[Vamsi]

In this slide it looks like the official confirmation of Mangalyaan's end ....also at top right corner notice the Venus mission having both orbiter & lander @Swesh @Indx TechStyle @Jimih and others

 

[Maveli]

Lander would be awesome. Maybe we can get HD video of the descent. The Russian Venus pics were underwhelming.

 

[Swesh]

https://www.prl.res.in/venus-sc/FirstAnnouncement.pdf

 

[Swesh]

Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) is a premier national research institution under the aegis of the Department of Space, Government of India. Founded in 1947 by Dr. Vikram A. Sarabhai, PRL is known as the "Cradle of Space Sciences" in India.

The third Venus Science Conference (Venus-SC 2023) will be organized in online mode during 21-22 September, 2023. The primary focus of conference is on modelling, observations, data analysis, conceptual design and scientific experiments for exploration of Venus. It is being held with a motive to provide a platform to the researchers for the interaction and exchange of knowledge. Though the focus is on Venus, the ideas and information will have a wider scope. This year we will have a discussion session among a group of domain scientists for each topic. So, mark your calendars and join us for the Venus-SC 2023

Venus Science Conference (Venus-SC 2024)

www.prl.res.in

 

[Swesh]

Scope of the Conference

The conference will cover following areas related to the Venusian Science:

Interior, Surface Science
Atmosphere, GCM, Lightning, Habitability
Ionospheric Science, Venus-Solar Wind Interactions
Interplanetary Dust Particles, IMF connection to Venus

 

[Indx TechStyle]

https://www.prl.res.in/venus-sc/FirstAnnouncement.pdf

Screenshot from above (purposely bumping the thread)