The planet Venus is often called “Earth’s twin” due to the similar sizes, but the reality couldn’t be farther from the truth. Unlike Earth, which is hospitable to an estimated billions of lifeforms, Venus is not hospitable to life as we know it, at least on its surface. This is because the surface of Venus not only experiences an average temperature of 464 degrees Celsius (867 degrees Fahrenheit), but it also has crushing pressures approximately 92 times of Earth, or equivalent to approximately 1 kilometer (3,000 feet) below the ocean. These extreme surface conditions are why the longest spacecraft to survive on the Venusian surface is just over two hours.
Now, a team of researchers from the Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands might be one step closer to landing a long-term spacecraft on Venus’ surface. In a study recently presented at the 57th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, they introduced the KYTHERA mission concept, which is a proposed lander they hypothesize could survive on the Venusian surface while performing science for up to 200 Earth days, which is more than 80 percent the length of one Venus day at 225 Earth days.
For the study, the researchers discussed candidate landing sites, lander design, mission timelines, and science goals. For landing sites, the team chose Lakshmi Planum and Lada Terra, with the former possessing reduced pressure and temperature conditions and the latter being more scientifically interesting since it potentially has active volcanism and seismic activity.
For lander design, the team proposed using cooling generators due to the extreme heat and whose design partially mimics the Soviet Venera lander designs of the 1970s and 1980s. For power needs, KYTHERA will use radioisotope systems, which have been used on Voyager 1 & 2 (orbiters), Cassini-Huygens (orbiter/lander), New Horizons (orbiter), Curiosity (rover), and Perseverance (rover). The mission timeline not only calls for a 200-day mission, but the researchers propose sending KYTHERA to Venus sometime between 2035 and 2037. For science goals, KYTHERA is designed to obtain atmospheric data during descent, along with continuous environmental monitoring and geologic analysis for the entire 200-day mission using spectroscopy and seismometers. The team states these instruments could be the same instruments as from the upcoming NASA DAVINCI mission, though modified for surface operations.
The study notes, “Many of these objectives cannot be achieved by orbiter missions alone, underscoring the critical role of a long-duration lander in advancing understanding of Venus’s geology, atmosphere, and evolution. Finally, the results highlight the need for additional studies on the performance and feasibility of instrumentation and materials under Venus’ harsh surface environment, which will be explored in the future in the newly established Delft High-P/T [Pressure/Temperature] Laboratory for Planetary Materials.”
As noted above, the longest surface mission to Venus lasted just over two hours at 127 minutes, which was accomplished by the Soviet Venera 13 lander in March 1982. This was one of 10 successful missions to the Venusian surface being conducted from 1970 to 1985, with nine of them coming from the Soviet Union and one coming from the United States. While Venera 13 continues to be the longest surface mission, several other missions lasted up to one hour, including the US mission.
This study comes as several missions are currently under development from NASA, European Space Agency, Indian Space Research Organization, UAE Space Agency, and even the private company Rocket Lab. However, all these missions are flybys, orbiters, or atmospheric probes, and are not designed for surface operations.
How could KYTHERA help advance Venusian surface operations in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!
As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!