Revealing the Mysteries of Venus: The DAVINCI Mission

Abstract

The Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging (DAVINCI) mission described herein has been selected for flight to Venus as part of the NASA Discovery Program. DAVINCI will be the first mission to Venus to incorporate science-driven flybys and an instrumented descent sphere into a unified architecture. The anticipated scientific outcome will be a new understanding of the atmosphere, surface, and evolutionary path of Venus as a possibly once-habitable planet and analog to hot terrestrial exoplanets. The primary mission design for DAVINCI as selected features a preferred launch in summer/fall 2029, two flybys in 2030, and descent-sphere atmospheric entry by the end of 2031. The in situ atmospheric descent phase subsequently delivers definitive chemical and isotopic composition of the Venus atmosphere during an atmospheric transect above Alpha Regio. These in situ investigations of the atmosphere and near-infrared (NIR) descent imaging of the surface will complement remote flyby observations of the dynamic atmosphere, cloud deck, and surface NIR emissivity. The overall mission yield will be at least 60 Gbits (compressed) new data about the atmosphere and near surface, as well as the first unique characterization of the deep atmosphere environment and chemistry, including trace gases, key stable isotopes, oxygen fugacity, constraints on local rock compositions, and topography of a tessera.

Extended Rift‐Associated Volcanism in Ganis Chasma, Venus Detected From Magellan Radar Emissivity

“…NASA's Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography & Spectroscopy mission (Smrekar et al, 2020) and ESA's EnVision mission (Ghail et al, 2012(Ghail et al, , 2020 will return complementary, critical datasets including improved topography, SAR imaging, gravity, and infrared spectroscopy. Additionally, NASA's Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging mission (Garvin et al, 2022) will analyze gases typically extruded by active volcanoes (SO 2 , CO 2 , HCL, HF, and perhaps PH 3 ). Roscosmos' Venera-D mission (Senske et al, 2017;Zasova et al, 2019) will analyze the infrared (1-μm) emissivity at high resolution, while its lander will also provide in-situ geochemical measurements of the surface and subsurface composition.…”

Venus Life Finder Missions Motivation and Summary

“…The VLF missions are a sions for which the first two can be launched quickly and executed cost. While NASA and ESA have recently selected missions to visit the 2020s (VERITAS [18], DAVINCI [19], and EnVision [20]), these mis studies about the planet's properties and do not address the habitabili questions targeted by the VLF missions. The VLF series of missions (described in [14] and in companion papers in the same issue [15][16][17]) are directly formulated to assess the habitability of Venusian clouds and to search for signs of life and life itself (Table 1).…”

“…The VLF missions are a focused set of missions for which the first two can be launched quickly and executed with relatively low cost. While NASA and ESA have recently selected missions to visit Venus at the end of the 2020s (VERITAS [18], DAVINCI [19], and EnVision [20]), these missions are for general studies about the planet's properties and do not address the habitability and astrobiology questions targeted by the VLF missions. Table 1.…”

Noble Gases and Stable Isotopes Track the Origin and Early Evolution of the Venus Atmosphere

“…Deep atmosphere sampling also avoids any uncertainties introduced by temporal or spatial Fig. 10 The NASA DAVINCI mission (Garvin et al 2022) will conduct in situ sampling of the Venus atmosphere during its ≈hour-long descent to the surface, providing critical measurements of noble gases and stable isotopes variability of the homopause location by species or other upper atmosphere stratification (von Zahn et al 1980;Mahieux et al 2012;Gruchola et al 2019;Peplowski et al 2020).…”