I wouldn't be surprised if VERITAS is cancelled and NASA ups their contribution to EnVision instead - frees up money and JPL resources for more important missions and contributing more to EnVision - even if that merely means more transmit time on the DSN might give them a degree of cover for what would be a very unpopular move.
I'd be disappointed, but merging the 2 missions into a sort-of-flagship does make a lil sense, although I presume you're referring more to a support capacity. Budgets allowing, I'd settle for NASA contributing a launch vehicle, one instrument, and the com support although naturally that's my opinion. 2 out of 3 Venus missions still an improvement over the years without Venusian science.
The head of a delayed NASA mission to Venus has warned that the project risks losing critical expertise if the agency doesn’t find a way to move up the mission…She said an extended delay, as still planned by NASA, threatened the personnel available for VERITAS, particular for its SAR instrument being developed at JPL. “There’s insufficient radar work at JPL. The radar workforce is really at threat,” she said. “It’s a really big technical threat for us.”She noted that while NASA has provided some funding for VERITAS to maintain its science team, there was “zero support for engineering development” for the mission. That has led some engineering staff assigned to the mission to seek other work at JPL.“We are losing our key team members all the time,” she said. “Over the dozen years it took us to get selected we developed a highly experienced, knowledgeable team, and they have to go take other jobs.”
I don't know if it will have any practical effect, but the just released House FY24 budget language includes this statement:Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectrometrymission.—The Committee supports the Discovery Program,including competitively selected missions such as the VenusEmissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectrometry(VERITAS) mission. The Committee recommends that NASA requestsufficient funding to ensure a launch by the end of the decade.The Committee directs NASA to provide a budget profile to ensurethe mission can remain on track.https://appropriations.house.gov/sites/republicans.appropriations.house.gov/files/FY24-CJS-Explanatory-Materials.pdf
IF Veritas ever does happen, I wonder how it'll work. Isn't most the science team already gone and on other projects? They'll need to rebuild everyone from the ground up.
While the mission’s leadership hoped to bring up the launch from 2031, Sue Smrekar, principal investigator for VERITAS, said at the recent annual meeting of the Venus Exploration Analysis Group (VEXAG) is now working towards a launch in June 2031.[...]However, in her presentation at the meeting, she raised concerns that NASA might seek to further slip the launch. The next opportunity to launch VERITAS after June 2031 is November 2032. “There’s a real possibility of a further delay to ’32,” she said.[...]While VERITAS works to avoid further delays, both DAVINCI and EnVision are pressing ahead. In a separate presentation at the VEXAG meeting, Thomas Widemann of the Paris Observatory said EnVision was still planning a launch in December 2031. ESA recently changed the launch vehicle for the mission from an Ariane 62 to an Ariane 64, with the extra performance intended to reduce the time the spacecraft spends in aerobraking once at Venus to enter its science orbit.DAVINCI is looking at launch opportunities in fiscal years 2031 and 2032, said Stephanie Getty, deputy principal investigator for the mission, in another presentation. A preferred launch date is December 2030, she said, which is “scientifically amazing” in terms of providing images of key regions of Venus during two flybys of the planet before arriving in early 2033 to deposit a probe in the planet’s atmosphere.
If VERITAS were to launch in the November 2032 opportunity, the VERITAS and EnVision missions would have significant overlap, particularly in their aerobraking campaigns. The current November 2031 EnVision baseline would also be performing VOI within weeks of VERITAS’s VOI.
On 28 January 2025, the European Space Agency (ESA) awarded a contract to Thales Alenia Space (TAS) to build the Envision spacecraft. Launching in the 2030s, Envision will be the first mission to investigate Venus from its inner core to its upper atmosphere. It will investigate what made our most Earth-like neighbour turn out so different from our home planet. The contract signing, which took place at the 17th European Space Conference in Brussels, Belgium, kicks off the industrial development of the mission. In collaboration with the Envision team, TAS will now finalise the spacecraft design and begin its construction. “We are extremely proud to announce our contribution as prime contractor to ESA's Envision mission, twenty years after the historic Venus Express mission,” says Giampiero Di Paolo, CEO of Thales Alenia Space Italia. “Thanks to our long-standing experience on complex scientific missions, we are determined to support this crucial planetary mission, which promises to further our knowledge of our Solar System.” Prof. Carole Mundell, ESA's Director of Science, adds: “We are thrilled to partner with Thales Alenia Space on this groundbreaking new mission to Venus. No other mission has ever attempted such a comprehensive investigation of our remarkably inhospitable neighbour. Envision will answer fundamental questions about how a planet becomes habitable – or the opposite.” Why go to Venus?Venus is the most Earth-like of the Sun’s terrestrial planets in terms of its size, composition and distance from the Sun. It may even have had a relatively Earth-like climate in its distant past. Yet at some point in planetary history, the two started to evolve very differently. Venus today has a crushingly dense, toxic atmosphere and a surface that is far too hot to host liquid water. Hence, Venus provides a natural laboratory for studying how habitability – or the lack of it – evolved in the Solar System. Europe's last mission to Venus – ESA's Venus Express – ended in 2014. It focused on the planet’s atmosphere, but also made dramatic discoveries that pointed to possible volcanic hotspots on the planet’s surface. Following up on Venus Express's discoveries, Envision will investigate the planet’s surface, interior and atmosphere with unrivalled accuracy, allowing us to understand how these different layers work and interact with each other. Notes for editorsEnvision is an ESA-led mission in partnership with NASA. NASA is expected to provide the VenSAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) instrument, as well as Deep Space Network support. The other payload instruments are contributed by ESA member states, with ASI, DLR, BelSPO, and CNES respectively leading the procurement of the Subsurface Sounding Radar (SRS) and the VenSpec-M, VenSpec-H and VenSpec-U spectrometers. The radio science experiment is led by France with contributions by Germany. Envision will join ESA’s science fleet of Solar System explorers. These missions address two top-level science themes of ESA’s Cosmic Vision 2015–2025, namely: What are the conditions for planet formation and the emergence of life? and How does the Solar System work?
Elsewhere in planetary science, NASA will continue development of high-priority missions such as Dragonfly and the Near-Earth Object Surveyor, while ceasing support for the Rosalind Franklin Rover, DAVINCI, VERITAS, EnVision, OSIRIS-Apophis Explorer, and Juno missions.[...]EXPLANATION OF MAJOR CHANGES IN FY 2026In order to achieve cost savings, the DAVINCI, VERITAS, and EnVision missions are eliminated. No funding is provided for the Venus Technology project and funding is reduced for peer-reviewed science in Discovery Research.
FY 2026 BUDGET TECHNICAL SUPPLEMENT [May 30]QuoteElsewhere in planetary science, NASA will continue development of high-priority missions such as Dragonfly and the Near-Earth Object Surveyor, while ceasing support for the Rosalind Franklin Rover, DAVINCI, VERITAS, EnVision, OSIRIS-Apophis Explorer, and Juno missions.All 2026 budget request documentsWell, this would kill both ESA's EnVision and Franklin missions to save a few $10sM. These are our partners and allies.
Elsewhere in planetary science, NASA will continue development of high-priority missions such as Dragonfly and the Near-Earth Object Surveyor, while ceasing support for the Rosalind Franklin Rover, DAVINCI, VERITAS, EnVision, OSIRIS-Apophis Explorer, and Juno missions.All 2026 budget request documents
Well, this would kill both ESA's EnVision and Franklin missions to save a few $10sM. These are our partners and allies.
