Rocket Lab Mission to Venus

Abstract

Regular, low-cost Decadal-class science missions to planetary destinations will be enabled by high-ΔV small spacecraft, such as the high-energy Photon, and small launch vehicles, such as Electron, to support expanding opportunities for scientists and to increase the rate of science return. The Rocket Lab mission to Venus is a small direct entry probe planned for baseline launch in May 2023 with accommodation for a single ~1 kg instrument. A backup launch window is available in January 2025. The probe mission will spend about 5 min in the Venus cloud layers at 48–60 km altitude above the surface and collect in situ measurements. We have chosen a low-mass, low-cost autofluorescing nephelometer to search for organic molecules in the cloud particles and constrain the particle composition.

Deducing the Composition of Venus Cloud Particles with the Autofluorescence Nephelometer (AFN)

“…The single-particle Autofluorescence Nephelometer (AFN) is the sole instrument on the Rocket Lab Mission to Venus [19], with a target launch date of May 2023. The AFN is designed to induce and detect autofluoresence of organic molecules in the Venus cloud particles, by using an excitation wavelength of 440 nm and a detector at 470-520 nm.…”

“…The AFN was selected for the Rocket Lab Venus mission [19], the first of a series of missions envisioned by the Venus Life Finder (VLF) team [20], because of the information it would provide and its small size. Figure 4 shows the proposed system that will carry the AFN through the Venus atmosphere.…”

“…In addition to uncertainty about the properties of the Venus cloud particles, other open questions involve the possible presence of organic compounds in the atmosphere of Venus [18] that could serve as possible precursors for exotic life forms. This has led to the development of an exploratory mission, developed by Rocket Lab, that will drop a small probe, instrumented with a single-particle optical spectrometer (here the term "spectrometer" refers to separation by size), into Venus's atmosphere to address some of these questions [19].…”

The Habitability of Venus and a Comparison to Early Earth

“…In a first mission, a small entry probe would descend through the clouds carrying an autofluorescence backscatter nephelometer, which would characterize the shape and composition of cloud particles and search for the fluorescence in UV light as a biomarker (Baumgardner et al, 2022). Such a mission is in development, at the time of writing, and may launch as soon as 2023 (French et al, 2022). A second proposed mission would put a more capable chemical and environmental detection instrumentation on a long-lived balloon floating in Venus clouds; such instrumentation could eventually include an aerosol mass spectrometer (Baines et al, 2021) and/or a fluorescent microscope which provides particular sensitivity to biomolecules (Sasaki et al, 2022).…”

Leading-Edge Vortex Lift (LEVL) Sample Probe for Venusian Atmosphere

“…The first of these VLF missions will be a privately funded mission by Rocket Lab [7]. Rocket Labs' proposed Photon craft payload is 170 kg to LEO and for this untested mission to Venus, Rocket Labs calculate the Photon craft's kick stage could carry a 15-20 kg payload.…”