To learn more about how terrestrial planets evolve over time, NASA has selected the Veritas and Davinci+ missions for its Discovery Programme, both bound for Venus

Lockheed Martin will design, build and operate both spacecraft, which are scheduled for launch in the 2028-2030 timeframe and will combine to study Venus’s dense atmosphere, topography and geologic processes ‘in great depth’. Both missions will aim to discover how Venus, which may have been the first potentially habitable planet in our solar system, became inhospitable to life.

Lisa Callahan, vice president and general manager of Lockheed Martin’s Commercial Civil Space business, said: “We are very grateful for this opportunity to work with NASA and the missions’ principal investigators to fully understand how rocky planets evolved and what it means for our planet, Earth. Our team who designed these two spacecraft to study Venus in unprecedented detail — and yield answers to its greatest mysteries — is beyond excited!”

The operations and science for Davinci+ (it stands for ‘deep atmosphere Venus investigation of noble gases, chemistry and imaging plus’) will be managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Veritas (this stands for ‘Venus emissivity, radio science, InSAR, topography and spectroscopy’) will have its science and operations managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.

Though scientists believe it was once similar to our home planet, Venus evolved to be much different and far less habitable than Earth. They say that as Earth’s own climate and geology evolve, interest in returning to Venus has surged because the planet currently suffers from a runaway greenhouse gas effect.

The scientists believe that over millennia, water that may have once existed on Venus’s surface evaporated and carbon dioxide built up in the atmosphere, leading to a present-day surface temperature that is hot enough to melt lead.

Davinci+ and Veritas will build on those findings, helping scientists better understand the existence of past life on Venus and how its atmosphere and geology may have influenced its ultimate outcome. Science from these missions could provide clues about Earth’s own future and will also help inform future missions to the planet.