Author Topic: Rocket Lab Venus Mission - NET Dec 30, 2024  (Read 45317 times)

Online FutureSpaceTourist

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Re: Rocket Lab Venus Mission
« Reply #100 on: 08/16/2022 10:14 pm »
https://twitter.com/rocketlab/status/1559658817167577088

Quote
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

Offline TrevorMonty

Re: Rocket Lab Venus Mission
« Reply #101 on: 08/17/2022 12:34 am »
https://twitter.com/rocketlab/status/1559658817167577088

Quote
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
Probe 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.

Will give Photon a good test of its deep space capabilities and give RL a year to sort any issues out before ESCAPE mission to Mars.
« Last Edit: 08/17/2022 12:36 am by TrevorMonty »

Offline edzieba

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Re: Rocket Lab Venus Mission
« Reply #102 on: 08/17/2022 11:23 am »
https://twitter.com/rocketlab/status/1559658817167577088

Quote
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
Probe 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.

Offline Welsh Dragon

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Re: Rocket Lab Venus Mission
« Reply #103 on: 08/17/2022 01:05 pm »
Quote
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
Probe 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.
It does both, just below fig 7 it states "Through the cloud layer and below, the science data will be transmitted direct to Earth at optimized data rates".

Offline jimvela

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Re: Rocket Lab Venus Mission
« Reply #104 on: 08/17/2022 02:12 pm »
The direct downlink data rate from an atmospheric probe to earth would be pretty low. 
Perhaps they might do that, but a relay does make sense.
The probe almost certainly will not have a pointed high gain antenna, so to get any kind of decent data volume downlinked from the probe would require relay to the host spacecraft, which could relay it or store it for downlink after Venus flyby.
That seems really likely to me.

In RocketLab's component business is the Fronter Lite deep space radio.
That is a licensed derivative of the APL Fronter radio, except it is miniaturized- and RL is working on firmware and capabilities as well for it.

I also believe (but cannot confirm) that a version of the Fronter Lite is on CAPSTONE, with firmware enabling its use as a space-to-space radio to communicate with LRO.

It would make complete sense for RocketLab to use this Venus demonstration mission as a development and test platform to refine these capabilities.
Doing so would significantly enhance the capabilities that they offer- at the component, spacecraft, and mission levels.
« Last Edit: 08/17/2022 02:22 pm by jimvela »

Offline TrevorMonty

Re: Rocket Lab Venus Mission
« Reply #105 on: 08/17/2022 05:05 pm »
I was expecting data to be relayed by Photon. Question for Beck next time he is interviewed.

Online FutureSpaceTourist

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Re: Rocket Lab Venus Mission
« Reply #106 on: 08/18/2022 06:51 am »
https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/08/rocket-lab-will-self-fund-a-mission-to-search-for-life-in-the-clouds-of-venus/

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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 JST

Never 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.

Online FutureSpaceTourist

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Re: Rocket Lab Venus Mission
« Reply #107 on: 08/29/2022 08:08 pm »
https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/08/29/1058724/the-first-private-mission-to-venus-will-have-just-five-minutes-to-hunt-for-life/

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The first private mission to Venus will have just five minutes to hunt for life
Launching 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'Callaghan
August 29, 2022

As 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?

Online Conexion Espacial

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Re: Rocket Lab Venus Mission
« Reply #108 on: 02/05/2023 12:11 am »
Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck mentioned on the Manifest Space program on Spotify (21:10) that the Venus mission is not likely to launch in 2023 because it will not be complete, if delayed, it would launch at the next opportunity in January 2025.
I publish information in Spanish about space and rockets.
www.x.com/conexionspacial

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Online FutureSpaceTourist

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Re: Rocket Lab Venus Mission - NET Dec 30, 2024
« Reply #110 on: 10/30/2023 08:43 pm »
https://twitter.com/spcplcyonline/status/1719106829349704017

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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.

Online FutureSpaceTourist

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Re: Rocket Lab Venus Mission - NET Dec 30, 2024
« Reply #111 on: 10/31/2023 11:59 am »
https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/1719323401452396940

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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.

Offline Star One

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Re: Rocket Lab Venus Mission - NET Dec 30, 2024
« Reply #112 on: 11/14/2023 06:33 pm »
New article on Rocket Lab’s Venus Life Finder mission. Also talks about the current troubles of the other proposed missions to the planet.

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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.



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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.

Talks about proposed follow up missions.

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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.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-a-private-space-mission-pierce-venuss-clouds/

Offline trimeta

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Re: Rocket Lab Venus Mission - NET Dec 30, 2024
« Reply #113 on: 11/15/2023 06:14 pm »
Another article on the Venus mission, emphasizing the shift from government-led planetary science to a regime where individual companies and universities can operate on their own. Although with the caveat that Rocket Lab isn't making any money on this mission, it's basically a tech demo saying "Hey NASA, maybe next time you should be the one paying us."

https://payloadspace.com/rocket-lab-takes-on-venus/

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