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For a Venus lander mission, active cooling of most of the electronics would be necessary, but it would also need sensors, actuators, and microcontrollers that can stand up to Venus' surface conditions. Trying to keep this stuff from immediate "puddleification" isn't easy, but NASA has just thrown a quarter of a million dollars at a University of Arkansas spinoff to develop Venus-resistant chips for a weird little rover.
Thanks to some earlier National Science Foundation funding, Ozark Integrated Circuits already has a chip that can tick along quite happily at temperatures of up to 350 degrees Celsius. To bump that up to the temperatures required for Venus operation, Ozark is using a silicon carbide substrate, with a secret sauce (literally a secret, for now) for the interconnects that's something much more stable and reliable than either aluminum or copper. Besides the physical hardware, Ozark also has to come up with biasing circuits and reference models to help compensate for high temperature operation.
Does exploration of Venus suffer because it does not seem possible for life to exist there, the way it does for Mars?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by KilroySmith on Thursday August 06 2015, @03:41AM
Does exploration of Venus suffer because it does not seem possible for life to exist there, the way it does for Mars?
No.
Perhaps it has something to do with the subject of the article. We know how to make mechanicals, electricals, and electronicals that can survive the -125C - +70C temperature range on Mars at the essentially zero atmospheric pressure, but we don't know how to make mechanicals, electricals, and electronicals that can survive the 467 C surface temperature (at 90 atmospheres of pressure) on Venus.
Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that we can't see the surface. No surface, not much mystery - unlike the canals, ice caps, and seasonal color changes of Mars which were tremendously intriguing - yes, possibly indicating life.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 06 2015, @04:13AM
So it's basically the same principle as keeping fragile items out of sight of children. They don't want to break things that they can't see. One wonders what wonders are hidden on Venus? Alien observation post, out of view of the stupid humans?
(Score: 3, Informative) by albert on Thursday August 06 2015, @08:03AM
The USSR pretty much got it done in 1981, with color photos even. Venera 13 spent over 2 hours transmitting from the surface of Venus. Really, it's not a problem. NASA is Mars-obsessed and has a tendency to build wimpy little fragile things. If you want a spacecraft built like a tank, you need it built in Soviet Russia.
Pictures here: http://mentallandscape.com/C_CatalogVenus.htm [mentallandscape.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 06 2015, @07:32PM
To be fair it took them about 10 times before they got it right...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observations_and_explorations_of_Venus#Early_landings [wikipedia.org]
Venus is a harsh planet.
NASA is Mars-obsessed and has a tendency to build wimpy little fragile things.
If you ignore Mariner, Pioneer, and Magellan.
Currently the best is 1-2 hours lander before the thing melts or stops working because of pressure. Then what you find there will not be much more interesting than what is on Mars. Mars lets you work out the kinks of the rest of the system. Such as 'what happens if your flash ram eats itself'.
NASA has always done baby steps. Even the moon landing was basically 15 or so launches of baby steps before they did it even then it was still a 'maybe'. The USSR was more 'lets go for it!' 'oh it blew up' 'do it again but fix whatever broke and lets go for it!'. NASA is more akin to a money manager working with small interest rates and USSR is more of a 'bet it all on red' investor.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 06 2015, @08:41PM
Mariner, Pioneer, and Magellan
Don't forget The Little Rover That Could.
It has by far exceeded its specified lifespan.
It's twin was also very impressive.
-- gewg_
(Score: 1) by virens on Thursday August 06 2015, @08:09AM
Of course we can [wikimedia.org], but this is not the main mystery - Venus atmosphere is [from here [space.com]]:
Besides, according to NASA website [nasa.gov], they are only considering landsailing - the surface is quite rough and bumpy.
Other [nasa.gov] interesting [eetimes.com] links [space.com] that you might find informative [utk.edu] (and which are conveniently missing in the original post, he-he :-))