How NASA's DAVINCI Mission Will Plunge Through Venus's Hellish Atmosphere (gizmodo.com) 69
"NASA's DAVINCI mission to Venus is scheduled for launch in 2029," reports Gizmodo, adding that a new paper "details this upcoming journey, a daring mission that could shed new light on the scorching hot planet's mysterious, and potentially habitable, past."
Upon its arrival at the second planet from the Sun, the probe will plunge through Venus' atmosphere, ingesting its gases for approximately one hour before landing on the planet's surface, according to the paper published in The Planetary Science Journal. DAVINCI is designed to act as a flying chemistry lab, and it will use its built-in instruments to analyze Venus's atmosphere, temperatures, pressure and wind speed, while taking a few photos of its trip through planetary hell...
If it survives the atmospheric entry, the probe will — hopefully — land in the Alpha Regio mountains, which are roughly the size of Texas, according to the researchers behind the new paper. Under ideal conditions, the probe will operate for 17 to 18 minutes once it sticks the landing, but it isn't really required to operate on Venus since all the precious data will have already been collected during its atmospheric plunge.
Digital Trends calls Venus "a frontier in planetary science about which very little is known" — then explains why that is. The biggest issue for any potential mission to Venus is the heat, as the surface temperatures can be as high as 900 degrees Fahrenheit (475 degrees Celsius). That's hot enough to melt lead, and it wreaks havoc with electronics... The pressure at the surface is around 95 bars, or nearly 100 times the atmospheric pressure on Earth's surface, so engineering a probe for this kind of environment is kind of like building a submarine... To keep the probe active for as long as possible, it is spherical and covered in a thick titanium shell to withstand the pressure and insulate against the heat. Then there's more insulation inside this shell, made of special materials including astroquartz, a type of fiber made from fused quartz... It's then filled with carbon dioxide gas to protect the high-voltage electronics from sparking and to stop any Earth gases from leaking in during launch....
The descent sphere will also have a camera that will be snapping high-contrast images of the surface, which can then be built up into 3D maps. For a camera to operate from inside a metal sphere, though, you need a window. And glass isn't a great material for dealing with intensely high-pressure environments. That's why DAVINCI's window will be made not of glass but sapphire... "Our final images will have 10-centimeter resolution," said the team's principal investigator, Jim Garvin. "That's the scale you'd see looking out across your living room...."
Researchers know that the clouds of Venus have drops of sulfuric acid in them — and sulfuric acid eats through materials. It's a particular concern for the Kevlar lanyard that will attach the descent sphere to the parachute. So to test whether the lanyard can withstand the acidic environment, the engineers don't just suspend it in a few drops of acid — they coat the entire surface in acid, then test the lanyard's pull strength to make sure it can survive long enough to take the probe through the atmosphere even in the worst possible case.
SciTechDaily notes DAVINCI "is the first mission to study Venus using both spacecraft flybys and a descent probe....
"It will also provide the first descent imaging of the mountainous highlands of Venus while mapping their rock composition and surface relief at scales not possible from orbit."
If it survives the atmospheric entry, the probe will — hopefully — land in the Alpha Regio mountains, which are roughly the size of Texas, according to the researchers behind the new paper. Under ideal conditions, the probe will operate for 17 to 18 minutes once it sticks the landing, but it isn't really required to operate on Venus since all the precious data will have already been collected during its atmospheric plunge.
Digital Trends calls Venus "a frontier in planetary science about which very little is known" — then explains why that is. The biggest issue for any potential mission to Venus is the heat, as the surface temperatures can be as high as 900 degrees Fahrenheit (475 degrees Celsius). That's hot enough to melt lead, and it wreaks havoc with electronics... The pressure at the surface is around 95 bars, or nearly 100 times the atmospheric pressure on Earth's surface, so engineering a probe for this kind of environment is kind of like building a submarine... To keep the probe active for as long as possible, it is spherical and covered in a thick titanium shell to withstand the pressure and insulate against the heat. Then there's more insulation inside this shell, made of special materials including astroquartz, a type of fiber made from fused quartz... It's then filled with carbon dioxide gas to protect the high-voltage electronics from sparking and to stop any Earth gases from leaking in during launch....
The descent sphere will also have a camera that will be snapping high-contrast images of the surface, which can then be built up into 3D maps. For a camera to operate from inside a metal sphere, though, you need a window. And glass isn't a great material for dealing with intensely high-pressure environments. That's why DAVINCI's window will be made not of glass but sapphire... "Our final images will have 10-centimeter resolution," said the team's principal investigator, Jim Garvin. "That's the scale you'd see looking out across your living room...."
Researchers know that the clouds of Venus have drops of sulfuric acid in them — and sulfuric acid eats through materials. It's a particular concern for the Kevlar lanyard that will attach the descent sphere to the parachute. So to test whether the lanyard can withstand the acidic environment, the engineers don't just suspend it in a few drops of acid — they coat the entire surface in acid, then test the lanyard's pull strength to make sure it can survive long enough to take the probe through the atmosphere even in the worst possible case.
SciTechDaily notes DAVINCI "is the first mission to study Venus using both spacecraft flybys and a descent probe....
"It will also provide the first descent imaging of the mountainous highlands of Venus while mapping their rock composition and surface relief at scales not possible from orbit."
Yawn (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Yawn (Score:5, Interesting)
Humans could not survive on the surface, but the upper reaches of Venus's atmosphere are quite pleasant. It is the only place in the solar system besides Earth where a human can survive without a space suit. Just a respirator and goggles would be enough.
We could construct a "Cloud City" like in Empire Strikes Back and a normal human-compatible mixture of 80% N2 and 20% O2 would provide plenty of buoyancy in Venus's dense atmosphere (mostly CO2).
The biggest problem for a Venus colony may be a lack of water.
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It is the only place in the solar system besides Earth where a human can survive without a space suit. Just a respirator and goggles would be enough.
All the while people keep fawning over the cold dead rock that is Mars.
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Incorrect. Sulfuric acid would be the biggest problem.
Venus's atmosphere doesn't contain sulfuric acid. It contains sulfur dioxide at 150 ppm. That is not a big problem for dry skin.
Wine and dried apricots contain SO2 at over 200 ppm.
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The biggest problem for a Venus colony may be a lack of water.
Or falling
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Just add a safety bar at the bottom of the garbage chute. You can grab it even with one hand sliced off. Then hang on and wait to be rescued.
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It is the only place in the solar system besides Earth where a human can survive without a space suit. Just a respirator and goggles would be enough.
The surface of Titan has similar pressure to Earth. A human would not need a space suit, just a heavily insulated suit to deal with the cold as well as a respirator and such.
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Humans could not survive on the surface
That's quitter talk! Seemingly impossible, stupid, pointless, and amazing feats are what humans do best. We don't have the technology today but that doesn't mean we never will. Never say die!
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I'm waiting for the manned visit.
Same. We need SpaceX to get a Starship version ready for interplanetary missions. How many flat earthers you think we could cram in one for a manned Venus mission?
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I'm waiting for the womanned visit. Men to to Mars, Women go to Venus.
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The Illuminati will prevent it (Score:5, Funny)
Like all DAVINCI operations.
They need Tom Hanks.
The Soviets did this years ago (Score:5, Informative)
Whenever a mission like this is mentioned, it always seems to get forgotten that humankind has already had several functioning landers on the surface of Venus, and even returned colour photographs from the surface.
See more here: http://mentallandscape.com/V_Venus.htm [mentallandscape.com].
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Russian science is being cancelled, which is good news for America
What are you talking about? That's bad news for all the world, including America.
Russia does a lot of good science, they do a lot of good things, which is why it's so bad they have a foolish thug as a dictator.
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The Soviet landers often lasted for about an hour, with one lasting for over two hours. Their design life was about half an hour.
So it seems like these landers are aiming a bit low. They might survive for longer of course. I'd be interested to know why. Is it to reduce launch weight or to allow for other heavy atmospheric measurement instruments? Or just because it's a new design and they don't have the experience to design for longer life?
From an engineering point of view, it should not be too difficult to
Re:The Soviets did this years ago (Score:4, Interesting)
The conditions (hard landing, extreme heat in CO2 atmosphere) can be simulated on Earth.
Hard landing shouldn't be a problem. The very thick atmosphere should make landing somewhat easier in this regard than most planets, though the clouds of sulphirc acid will add some additional challenges.
In terms of design life: they were powered by batteries, which is very limiting. No option for solar on Venus, and RTGs are tricky since they'd have to operate at 600 degrees C, maybe more in order to get a big enough temperature differential.
It might be possible to power a lander with a windmill. Speeds are only a few kmh, but the atmosphere is so dense that there's energy to be extracted. Then you could power a heat pump to keep the internals cool enough that electronics won't fry.
Also something somwhere has to be built like a pressure vessel.
While it's possible to do all of that, it's very much into the realm of exotic materials, since the vast vast majority of research is on lower temperature and pressure materials. Could you make a heat pump... probably. It would use some unusual refridgerants. Possibly mercury as an appropriate phase diagram to operate as a refrigerant on venus.
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No option for solar on Venus, and RTGs are tricky since they'd have to operate at 600 degrees C, maybe more in order to get a big enough temperature differential.
I wonder, could you just turn the RTG inside out, skip the plutonium, and use the atmospheric heat instead? Venus surface temp is close to that of an RTG source. Use an external panel and heat pipes to pull the heat into the the, well guess it's not a RTG at this point. TG? ATG? Seeback generator? Whatever. It's not going to last long, but that's a given either way.
Re: The Soviets did this years ago (Score:1)
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The USSR measured the light levels down there and they were equivalent to Earth on a sunny day. The atmosphere may be thick and cloudy, but it's also closer to the sun.
I would think the bigger problem would be the fact that it's nearly 500C and solar panels don't do too well in extreme heat.
Point is that if the USSR could do it with 1980s technology (even the later probes were the same design) then it shouldn't be too hard to replicate now. Whatever batteries they were using were able to survive. They pre-c
Re: The Soviets did this years ago (Score:2)
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Huh... so why not a cold sink? What I mean is, as the craft is traveling to Venus, there's lots of opportunity to cool a block of mass to really cold temperatures, like -270C. Use the right materials like ones that are gases in the range of Venusian temperatures, and you get not only the heats of melting and of evaporation to store negative energy, but you can then vent the gasses, and get some additional cooling on top.
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I would guess because of weight. It would have to be an inert block, any electronics would fail.
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The Soviet landers often lasted for about an hour, with one lasting for over two hours. Their design life was about half an hour.
So it seems like these landers are aiming a bit low.
I think NASA has bought in on "under-promise and over-perform". Just about every NASA mission gets planned for somewhat short time-frames that they usually exceed by wide margins. It's great for PR. If the mission lasts longer, they can show how the project was money well spent because it outlives it's planned duration. If it fails early, they can say it was only meant to last for x number of days.
Nothing wrong with the approach, I'm just saying they probably intend for it to last longer than the official p
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The soviets were also spectacularly good at sampling their own lens caps. Either they failed to eject, or they did, they landed on the surface exactly where the soil probe was aimed.
Re:The Soviets did this years ago (Score:4, Insightful)
"woman" . A little less woke and virtue signalling please.
Can you please stop virtue signalling to your fellow anti-woke campaigners? It's getting a little tedious.
If you don't like how language is changing, go complain to Academe Francis or something. We have not equivalent in English. Language changes. Get over it.
I mean after all you're not pissing and moaning about "man" subsuming "wer". Why is a 500 year old word too new for you but a 1000 year old word isn't?
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Humankind was first used in 1560. You've had 438 years to get over it. That's enough time for anyone.
And Neil Armstrong wasn't the kind of person to whine about people using a perfectly good, long established word because he's not a butthurt loser.
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Re:The Soviets did this years ago (Score:4)
Re:The Soviets did this years ago (Score:5, Informative)
Humankind definition: https://www.merriam-webster.co... [merriam-webster.com]
No one likes culture warrior word police.
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Americans are rightly proud of Apollo, but they are well aware of Soviet achievements.
Beyond Sputnik and Gagarin? I doubt it.
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Most people know they beat us to the spacewalk and had several functional space stations over the years.
Mercury and Gemini definitely outclassed Vostok in basically every way but they beat us up there.
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I think a lot of us who care about this sort of thing know that Valentina Tereshkova was the first woman in space, too.
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The collective being referred to was "Americans".
Let's go out on the street and see how many Americans have heard of Valentina Tereshkova.
Re:The Soviets did this years ago (Score:5, Informative)
humankind has already
WTF? Why make up words?
First of all, all words are made up. Second, it's not some contemporary "woke" word like you seem to think. It's over 300 years old:
"humankind (n.)
"the human species," 1640s, from human + kind (n.). Originally two words. Middle English had humaigne lynage "humankind" (mid-15c.)."
Mankind is older, but not by much, especially the modern version which showed up in the 14th century:
"mankind (n.) early 13c., man-kende, "the human race, humans collectively," from man (n.) + kind (n.). Also used occasionally in Middle English for "male persons" (late 14c.), but otherwise preserving the original gender neutrality of man (n.). For "menfolk, the masculine division of humanity, the male sex," menkind (late 14c.) and menskind (1590s) have been used. Mankind as "the human race" displaced earlier mankin (from Old English mancynn) which survived into 14c."
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First of all, all words are made up.
True, but you'd hope a new word serves some new purpose, that it adds to the language.
Second, it's not some contemporary "woke" word like you seem to think. It's over 300 years old:
Ok, I did not know that. Will have to reconsider the motives of the GP. Has it been in common usage in recent decades?
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The motives of the GP (me) were to use a word that I know to convey a meaning that I intended. Apologies for any ruckus this may have caused.
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The motives of the GP (me) were to use a word that I know to convey a meaning that I intended. Apologies for any ruckus this may have caused.
Yeah, ditto. I guess the lesson is how much the implications of words can vary by culture, if not the literal meaning.
It was interesting to see how the moderation of the post went from "+5 insightful" to "0, troll" as one continent went to bed and another awoke, though neither label is objectively true there.
It would be fascinating to see a study of political moderations and time-zone correlation.
While "humankind" sounded very odd to my ears, it probably sounded natural to you, living in a different cultu
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The moderation history is interesting:
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Re:The Soviets did this years ago
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It is cu
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Imagine doing something this dramatic and being remembered because of what sex you are. The correct term should have been first person to orbit the Earth so people such as yourself wouldn't get your panties in an uproar over something so trivially insignificant.
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Imagine doing something this dramatic and being remembered because of what sex you are.
Like Amelia Earhart?
I think you are confused. Nobody commented on neil Armstrong's sex. He was simply the first.
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Yep, I'm as pro-USA as they come but it's lying by omission to not even mention the large amount of science the Soviets have done on Venus for decades.
I'm not sure if it's ignorance, homerism, or a currently anti-Russia 'thing' but jesus people it's basic facts. I guess they really aren't important to reporting anymore....
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The US also had a lander or two on the surface, although they were not designed to take photos, being primarily atmospheric probes which happened to make it to the surface. More [wikipedia.org]
Difficult, but not the most difficult re-entry. (Score:4, Informative)
Venus is hard, but it is not the hardest re-entry. That was Jupiter: https://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/sl9/... [nasa.gov]
Venus is a terrible place to land on. Doing science on the way down is the smart move (the Soviets did that too), because landing in a working state is not guaranteed.
We must remember the Soviet efforts Venera 9-12 in particular. They worked well, amazingly well for 1970s technology, but suffered several instrument failures.
NASA has better quality control than the Soviets did, but the engineering problems are not easier than they were in the 1970s and the fundamental materials are not much different. I hope their mechanisms work better than the Soviet ones did.
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Yep, the Soviets had to bootstrap their way up to a lander that could function on the surface. For the first mission, the surface pressure was unknown, estimated to be in the region of 10-25 bar.
They also had some spectacularly bad luck (a sample arm landing on a camera cover).
Protomolecule (Score:1)
There is protomolecule in there. Remember the Venus event
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]
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Sounds like NASA took notes (Score:2)
Researchers know that the clouds of Venus have drops of sulfuric acid in them — and sulfuric acid eats through materials.
I wonder how many times the folks at NASA watched how you deal with sulfuric acid [dailymotion.com]. Their computers were probably running overtime doing the calculations.
2029 is a wish given NASA's recent track record (Score:2)
Based on the JWST and SLS it will probably launch in 2040 and be massively overbudget.
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Cost of NASA is miniscule. Getting a design correct for something that will function tens of millions of kilometers away in 95 earth atmospheres and 480 degrees C after plunging through atmosphere with sulphuric acid rain is important, extra time is fine.
JWST wait and cost is worth it, amazing achievement that will have benefits for decades.
Why so slow? (Score:1)
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Do tell us of your experience building spacecraft and planetary probes that can function in 480 degree C heat and 95 earth atmospheres of pressure, and moreover send that data to Earth tens of millions of kilometers away.
Oh, you have none? You're talking out of your ass about something you know nothing about? How about letting NASA engineers and scientists do what they have ability to do, while you shut the fuck up.
Poor eyesight (Score:2)
"Our final images will have 10-centimeter resolution," said the team's principal investigator, Jim Garvin. "That's the scale you'd see looking out across your living room...."
That's some rather poor eyesight.
I can read 1-centimeter high letters across my living room.
Only Hydrated Sulphuric Acid corrosive (Score:4, Informative)
Contrary to popular impression, sulphuric acid is not very corrosive by itself. Car batteries are full of it. The acid is routinely handled in industrial plants in carbon steel pipes and tanks. But add more than 5%w water and the corrosion rate sky-rockets. The pure acid is also a powerful dessicant, pulling water from carbohydrates and leaving just carbon foam. I don't know how much water is in the Venusian atmosphere and clouds.
Of course it may fail -- it is designed to! Aerospace design practice is to make it lighter (thinner) until it has a target probability of failure.
not that bad (Score:2)
Just wait 100 years to save money (Score:2)
Important scientific discovery, 95 is nearly 100 (Score:1)
The pressure at the surface is around 95 bars, or nearly 100 times the atmospheric pressure on Earth's surface