China has unapproved plans for a Venus probe, launching around 2025-2030.
NASA's Solar Probe Plus to be launched in July 2018 will make 7 flybys of Venus beginning 2 months after launch with the last one in October 2024. Each flyby will lower its Solar orbit. I'm not sure it will do any Venus science, since it is equipped to study the Sun. I suppose that at least the Solar environment at Venus will be better known.
Quote from: TakeOff on 01/18/2017 11:50 amNASA's Solar Probe Plus to be launched in July 2018 will make 7 flybys of Venus beginning 2 months after launch with the last one in October 2024. Each flyby will lower its Solar orbit. I'm not sure it will do any Venus science, since it is equipped to study the Sun. I suppose that at least the Solar environment at Venus will be better known.Correct, and this is a problem with flybys: they're designed for specific targets in mind. The only data the Solar Probe Plus could acquire at Venus would probably be particle and magnetic; ESA's JUICE mission could do better since it has instruments designed to study the Jovian atmosphere as well as the Galilean moons.
I vaguely remember hearing a presentation on SP+ in the past year where somebody asked about Venus science and was told that they will do some. But you are right that it is limited. My suspicion is that because of the type of instrumentation on SP+, the Venus science they will do will relate to how Venus interacts with the sun.
Quote from: Blackstar on 01/18/2017 02:52 pmI vaguely remember hearing a presentation on SP+ in the past year where somebody asked about Venus science and was told that they will do some. But you are right that it is limited. My suspicion is that because of the type of instrumentation on SP+, the Venus science they will do will relate to how Venus interacts with the sun.There was a report done that looked at the science (limited as I recall) that the solar missions and Bepi-Colombo could conduct during their Venus flybys. I can't find it now, but I'm sure it's out there.