We're sending our Photon spacecraft to Venus in search of life 🛰️Supported by a science team at @MIT, this is the 1st private mission to Venus & 1st opportunity to probe the Venusian clouds in nearly 4 decades. Full mission details in this new paper: https://www.mdpi.com/2226-4310/9/8/445/htm
https://twitter.com/rocketlab/status/1559658817167577088QuoteWe're sending our Photon spacecraft to Venus in search of life Supported by a science team at @MIT, this is the 1st private mission to Venus & 1st opportunity to probe the Venusian clouds in nearly 4 decades. Full mission details in this new paper: https://www.mdpi.com/2226-4310/9/8/445/htm
We're sending our Photon spacecraft to Venus in search of life Supported by a science team at @MIT, this is the 1st private mission to Venus & 1st opportunity to probe the Venusian clouds in nearly 4 decades. Full mission details in this new paper: https://www.mdpi.com/2226-4310/9/8/445/htm
Quote from: FutureSpaceTourist on 08/16/2022 10:14 pmhttps://twitter.com/rocketlab/status/1559658817167577088QuoteWe're sending our Photon spacecraft to Venus in search of life Supported by a science team at @MIT, this is the 1st private mission to Venus & 1st opportunity to probe the Venusian clouds in nearly 4 decades. Full mission details in this new paper: https://www.mdpi.com/2226-4310/9/8/445/htmProbe will communicate directly with earth during entry phase. They didn't say what happens to Photon after it separates from probe. I'm guessing burns up in atmosphere or does burn to complete a flypass and off to deep space.
Quote from: TrevorMonty on 08/17/2022 12:34 amQuote from: FutureSpaceTourist on 08/16/2022 10:14 pmQuoteWe're sending our Photon spacecraft to Venus in search of lifeSupported by a science team at @MIT, this is the 1st private mission to Venus & 1st opportunity to probe the Venusian clouds in nearly 4 decades. Full mission details in this new paper: https://www.mdpi.com/2226-4310/9/8/445/htmProbe will communicate directly with earth during entry phase. They didn't say what happens to Photon after it separates from probe. I'm guessing burns up in atmosphere or does burn to complete a flypass and off to deep space.Fig. 7 shows the probe communicating via the spacecraft (photon) for rely to Earth.
Quote from: FutureSpaceTourist on 08/16/2022 10:14 pmQuoteWe're sending our Photon spacecraft to Venus in search of lifeSupported by a science team at @MIT, this is the 1st private mission to Venus & 1st opportunity to probe the Venusian clouds in nearly 4 decades. Full mission details in this new paper: https://www.mdpi.com/2226-4310/9/8/445/htmProbe will communicate directly with earth during entry phase. They didn't say what happens to Photon after it separates from probe. I'm guessing burns up in atmosphere or does burn to complete a flypass and off to deep space.
QuoteWe're sending our Photon spacecraft to Venus in search of lifeSupported by a science team at @MIT, this is the 1st private mission to Venus & 1st opportunity to probe the Venusian clouds in nearly 4 decades. Full mission details in this new paper: https://www.mdpi.com/2226-4310/9/8/445/htm
We're sending our Photon spacecraft to Venus in search of lifeSupported by a science team at @MIT, this is the 1st private mission to Venus & 1st opportunity to probe the Venusian clouds in nearly 4 decades. Full mission details in this new paper: https://www.mdpi.com/2226-4310/9/8/445/htm
Rocket Lab will self-fund a mission to search for life in the clouds of Venus"Breakthrough science is possible."by Eric Berger - Aug 17, 2022 10:09pm JSTNever let it be said that Rocket Lab founder Peter Beck lacks a flamboyant streak.Although his Electron launch vehicle is one of the smallest orbital rockets in the world, Beck gleans every bit of performance from the booster he can.
The first private mission to Venus will have just five minutes to hunt for lifeLaunching as soon as next year, Rocket Lab’s low-cost mission will be brief, but it could transform the search for alien biology.By Jonathan O'CallaghanAugust 29, 2022As the covid pandemic raged in late 2020, all eyes turned briefly from our troubled planet to our planetary neighbor Venus. Astronomers had made a startling detection in its cloud tops: a gas called phosphine that on Earth is created through biological processes. Speculation ran wild as scientists struggled to understand what they were seeing. Now, a mission due to be launched next year could finally begin to answer the question that has excited astronomers ever since: Could microbial life be belching out the gas?
Rocket Lab's Christopher Mandy is presenting at VEXAG about Rocket Lab's Venus probe. Launch date is now Dec 30, 2024. Here are two of his slides.
The company later clarified the Dec. 30, 2024, date given in the presentation is the opening of a launch period that extends into early 2025; a specific launch date hasn't been set yet.
VLF has already secured its ride to Venus via Rocket Lab, an upstart commercial launch provider. The exact launch date has yet to be determined—and the mission’s total cost remains undisclosed—but a launch window opens December 30, 2024, and extends into 2025. Rocket Lab is keen to partner with researchers to carry out impactful science missions with a small rocket, small spacecraft and relatively small budgets, says Peter Beck, the company’s founder, president and chief executive officer.
In a briefing to VEXAG, Christophe Mandy, Rocket Lab lead system engineer for interplanetary missions, detailed how the probe will experience a five-minute free-fall through Venus’s thick cloud layers and take measurements every two kilometers of its descent until it succumbs to the harsh conditions circa 20 kilometers above the surface. “We’re hoping that by demonstrating that this is possible, it might be able to trigger more interest,” Mandy said.
Under the label Morning Star Missions to Venus, Seager and team are looking beyond the first mission, plotting for even more ambitious medium- and long-term objectives, such as a follow-up atmospheric probe that benefits from a parachute and perhaps even a spacecraft to retrieve a sample of Venus’s air for direct analysis back on Earth. “We’re trying to get all our ducks in a row now, but we’re not quite there yet,” she says.