[X] My Assistant

[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

[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.

[ljk4-1]

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.

While I have no illusions regarding the complexity this would add to such a mission, perhaps the lander could be attached to a balloon that would periodically rise into the cooler heights, then settle down somewhere else for a while. Perhaps a lack of longevity can be made up for in visiting more places on Venus.

[elakdawalla]

I've always been curious, what domestic uses could there be for the technologies needed to explore Venus's surface -- high temperature and pressure? I don't think scientific needs (like exploring deep-sea volcanoes) count. Is there a need in, say, manufacturing or something for robotics, electronics, and sensors that can operate at Venusian temperatures and pressures? I think that support of the development of the rovers was probably aided by the obvious military uses that you could put smart, autonomous rovers to -- it always helps to be able to demonstrate down-to-earth uses for expensive NASA technologies.

By the way you don't necessarily need to get to the high temperatures that the Venera landers encountered. David Crisp kept pointing out at the VEXAG meeting that you could land in the crater Cleopatra (which is at quite high altitude) and find significantly lower ambient temperature and potentially learn a lot about Venus, namely how the heck a planet that hot can support a topographic feature as high as Maxwell Montes.

--Emily

[mcaplinger]

I've always been curious, what domestic uses could there be for the technologies needed to explore Venus's surface -- high temperature and pressure?

The pressure isn't as much a problem as the temperature. There are probably a lot of industrial uses for high-temp electronics -- jet-engine controllers, for example. When we were writing our Venus probe proposal (which I like to call "Tom Swift and His Nuclear Refrigerator" -- see http://www.msss.com/venus/vgnp/vgnp.txt.html ) there was a lot of work being done on silicon carbide (SiC) electronics for engine control. Haven't looked lately; it wasn't really viable in the mid-90s.