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posted by martyb on Thursday October 24 2019, @08:46AM   Printer-friendly
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


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  • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday October 24 2019, @03:02PM

    by Freeman (732) on Thursday October 24 2019, @03:02PM (#911219) Journal

    That puts a sad face on my face. Half the coolness of these scientific expeditions is the cool photos we sometimes get.

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    Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
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