NASA’s VERITAS mission to Venus is finally back on track after facing long-term delays and budget constraints. The mission, which aims to unlock the secrets of Venus and understand how it diverged from Earth, has a scheduled launch date of 2031.
The announcement was made at the 55th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) in Texas, where planetary scientists expressed their excitement for this long-awaited mission. Darby Dyar, the deputy principal investigator of the VERITAS mission, described the news as a dream come true. “To hear… that we have a launch date and a real budget is, honestly, hard to believe. I walked around last night asking people to pinch me to make sure I wasn’t dreaming!” Dyar said.
The journey to this point has not been easy for the VERITAS mission. In March 2023, NASA revealed its FY24 budget, which did not allocate enough funds for the mission. With only $1.5 million allocated for VERITAS, while the estimated mission cost was $124 million, it seemed uncertain whether the mission would ever take off. However, after being put on hold due to budgeting and staffing issues at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), VERITAS is now back on track.
NASA has been facing budgeting challenges, receiving $24.875 billion for its budget in 2024, which is half a billion less than the previous year and falls short of what the agency had hoped to spend on its programs in 2024. Despite these challenges, NASA is committed to exploring Venus once again.
This mission marks a significant gap in Venus exploration, with more than 30 years passing since NASA’s Magellan mission ended operations in 1994. Magellan was the first spacecraft to image the entire surface of Venus and made important discoveries about the planet. Since then, NASA has not sent another spacecraft to Venus.
The VERITAS mission, together with DAVINCI (formerly known as DAVINCI+), was formally selected in June 2021 to conduct unprecedented exploration of Venus. While VERITAS will focus on creating new surface maps of the planet, DAVINCI will study Venus’ atmosphere and its potential habitability.
Scientists hope that the VERITAS mission will provide valuable insights into Venus’ current geological processes and the existence of water on the planet. The data collected by VERITAS will also contribute to another NASA mission to Venus, DAVINCI, which aims to study the planet’s clouds and potentially reach its surface.
With the resumption of the VERITAS mission, scientists and space enthusiasts alike can look forward to a new era of exploration and discovery on Venus. As we unlock the secrets of this mysterious planet, we may gain a deeper understanding of our own planet’s history and the possibilities for life beyond Earth.
