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from the Say-Hi-to-Reinhardt-and-Maximillian dept.
Wired reports that NASA Wants to Send a Probe to the Hellish Surface of Venus and make it last.
For perspective, the longest a probe has survived on the surface of Venus is 127 Minutes. The Soviet made Venera 13 in 1981.
Since the first (crash) landing on Venus in 1966, by a Soviet probe, spacecraft have only survived a total of a few hours on the planet's surface. But NASA's new probe is being designed [to] last up to 60 days on the punishing Venusian surface. Known as the Long-Lived In-situ Solar System Explorer, or LLISSE, each of the probe's components is specially engineered to withstand the high temperature, high pressure, and reactive atmosphere that define that infernal planet.
Longevity of sixty days is being targeted for a reason,
[Tibor Kremic, chief of the space science project office at Glenn Research Center in Ohio] and his team want the probe to last that long so it can witness the transition between night and day. If they land late in a Venusian day, which lasts almost four Earth months, they think they can eke out enough battery life to make that happen. "We don't have any data on how the conditions change from day to night on Venus," says Kremic. "We're trying to capture as much of that as possible."
The probe is small and intended to hitch a ride on another spacecraft heading near Venus rather than being a separate launch. Currently the team is looking at the Venera-D mission, which is scheduled for 2026.
Related: Here's a Plan to Send a Spacecraft to Venus, and Make It Last
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Thursday October 24 2019, @09:35AM (1 child)
They should do a 2-in-1. A lander and something that can float around above the ultra-thick layers of the atmosphere.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday October 24 2019, @01:03PM
You can get the latter to last 61 days easy on solar power.