Indian mission to Venus, - proposed! Options

[Phil Stooke]

Interesting news item from The Asian Age:

http://www.asianage.com/india/after-mars-i...e-2-3-years-335

Quick summary - looks like it's only a feasibility study, so I don't know how far it has gone along the planning and proposal process. But the veteran French planetary balloon proponent Jacques Blamont has been working with Indians on the plans, and one or more balloons in the atmosphere are part of the mission plan.

Phil

[Ohsin]

From Venus Exploration Analysis Group (VEXAG) 2019

https://twitter.com/ThePlanetaryGuy/status/...136731828609025
https://twitter.com/SpacedOutSid/status/1192138230184861696

Science objectives:
* Mapping the Venusian surface at high spatial resolution of 30 to 40 meters
* Determining the structure and stratigraphy of surface/subsurface features -- volcanic hotspots
* Determining the structure and composition of the atmosphere
* Understanding Cloud Dynamics
* Investigating Venusian Ionosphere

Indian Proposals: 54
Recommended: 16

International Proposals: 21
Recommended: 7 (USA-3, Russia-1, Russia/France-1)

Collaborative payloads:
* India/Germany: 1
* India/Sweden: 1

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[JRehling]

This is cheery news. Four (not necessarily fresh) reactions:

1) There is a surface emissivity instrument! Getting this dataset for Venus' surface will be a breakthrough.
2) That's some very high resolution radar, the long-awaited upgrade to Magellan.
3) The sheer number of instruments is unprecedented. That's exciting; maybe creates some risk or complications, at least? How do 23 instruments (actually, the fraction of 23 that needs a line-of-sight) even get a view of Venus at the same time?
4) This mission will be in a highly elliptical orbit, so I'm not sure how the planet will get a comprehensive mapping with [take your surface instrument of choice]. If the latitude of periapsis is equatorial, the high latitudes will get worse coverage unless that latitude migrates throughout the mission.

[vjkane]

This is cheery news. Four (not necessarily fresh) reactions:

I agree that this is a wonderful instrument list, but it would be considered ambitious for a NASA or ESA mission. More means more risk and more tradeoffs between instrument observations.

I'd like to know what the expected volume of returned data is. I also have a memory that the orbiter will be in an elliptical orbit. If so, I'd like to know the latitude of the periapsis and whether that will change over the course of the mission.

My guess is that some instruments will take global measurements while the more data hungry instruments (radar especially but also the thermal emissivity instrument) will take localized measurements, especially if the spacecraft is in an elliptical orbit.

Even if I'm correct in my conservatism, this could be a very nice mission. I don't think it will be a replacement for more focused orbiters designed for large data volume global measurements.