Russia Plans "long-lived" Venus Probe Options

[Waspie_Dwarf]

Russia Plans "Long-Lived" Venus Probe

The press secretary of the Russian Federal Space Agency, Vyacheslav Davidenko, has said that Russia will design and launch a long-living probe to Venus by 2015. The probe is known as Venera-D.

Davidenko told a news briefing that within the federal Space budget for 2006-2015 was envisaged, “work to develop a principally new spacecraft, Venera D, intended for detailed studies of the atmosphere and surface of Venus”.

“It is expected that the craft with a long, more than one month period of active existence will land on the surface of the planet that is the nearest to the earth. Nobody has done such thing on Venus so far.”

Source: ITAR-TASS

[Toma B]

Should be good...
Maybe little wheels on that lander...

[ElkGroveDan]

The probe is known as Venera-D.

The Russian space program really needs some PR and marketing people.

[Waspie_Dwarf]

The Russian space program really needs some PR and marketing people.

And NASA and ESA don't? Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Venus Express are hardly inspiring names for spacecraft.

[JRehling]

“It is expected that the craft with a long, more than one month period of active existence will land on the surface

No word on the thermal strategy: Build a spacecraft that can withstand the heat. Or, use refrigeration to keep the probe cool. Or some combination of both. A probe that was built to withstand the heat might well last indefinitely, much longer than a month.

Would this be the first Soviet/Russian spacecraft to use an RTG? I think they have been able to rely upon batteries and solar panels thus far.

The next question is what a long-lived probe's long life would be for. Data on wind/temperature/pressure variations would be interesting, but may turn out to be boringly constant. It's possible that wind would blow some dust around, but that's no guarantee. Skyward looking cameras could show variation in cloud structure blowing overhead. One baseline instrument that seems to me to provide a clear need for life beyond an hour would be a seismograph, which is of diminished value without a long life span. Additionally, if there is a sampling/instrument arm, then arbitrarily long mission durations could yield the benefit of more sampling, especially with irradiative spectrometers that require long integration times. Maybe a long, double-jointed arm could scan a grid around the lander, moving a small suite of MER-like instruments carefully around the base. It would then be essential to keep the arm's movements from interfering with the seismometer.

[Waspie_Dwarf]

Russian spy satellites have employed minature nuclear reactors (although not RTGs I beleive). They have lead to problems. In 1978 Cosmos 954 crashed in Northern Canada spreading radioactive material over a large area.

[tty]

The Soviet Union certainly developed RTG's which were used for powering e. g. lighthouses in remote locations. Incidentally at least some were insufficiently shielded and so could be dangerous to approach for the unwary.

tty

[ljk4-1]

The Soviet Union certainly developed RTG's which were used for powering e. g. lighthouses in remote locations. Incidentally at least some were insufficiently shielded and so could be dangerous to approach for the unwary.

tty

Of course anyone on the surface of Venus will have bigger things to concern themselves with than encountering an RTG or two.

[tedstryk]

I know there were some RTG's that were sent to Peru or thereabouts on Mars'96.

[Stephen]

And NASA and ESA don't? Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Venus Express are hardly inspiring names for spacecraft.

They could always hold a competition. Then they might get to select such inspiring names as "Spirit" and "Opportunity".

=====
Stephen

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

On the way back from the COMPLEX meeting, I attended the afternoon half of the day-long first meeting of VEXAG -- the Venus Exploration Analysis Group, which is the new equivalent of MEPAG and OPAG. There was very little news -- except for the revelation that one of VEXAG's subgroups is currently engaged in a detailed prioritization of the goals of Venusian surface science and the technical difficulty of achieving them, which I hope to get hold of in two weeks or so. But one thing that the Group made clear is that building a long-lived Venusian lander is still going to be bloody hard. You need either a VERY high-powered cooling unit (probably mechanically powered by the waste heat from an RTG), or electronics capable of enduring Venusian temperatures -- or both. (Right now we have experimental electronics capable of enduring 250 deg C. We need 200 degrees above that.) So I think this new Russian news is just more empty whoosh from a nation desperately trying to put up any kind of fake front that it can to say that it's still capable of large-scale space exploration.

What we DON'T need -- as I had suspected earlier -- is wheels (contrary to what the Solar System Strategic Roadmap group had said). As Doug Mackwell said, by precision control of the buoyancy of a Venus lander -- which is more like controlling the buoyancy of a submarine than that of a balloon -- "you can glide along two meters, or 20 meters, above the surface."

[Waspie_Dwarf]

Whilst you are no doubt correct about how difficult this long-lived goal will be to achieve the Russians have given themselves a decade to achieve this.

"Empty whoosh" possibly, but I hope not. Russia has surprised the west many times by achieving things that seemed improbable with the resources they have to hand. I would never rule them out.

[Tom Ames]

The Russian space program really needs some PR and marketing people.

"Venera-D" does sound a lot like it belongs up the isle from Preparation-H.

[mchan]

And NASA and ESA don't? Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Venus Express are hardly inspiring names for spacecraft.

Er, it may be an American thing, but Venera-D sounds like an abbreviated form of an old term for STD's. ElkGroveDan was polite to not put it so bluntly.

[ilbasso]

Have the Russians attempted any interplanetary probes since 1996? Do they have any other ones already in development now? I know they are strapped for cash but it's hard to believe it will have been 20 years between their last and next interplanetary attempts.