Other
Scientific paper
May 2002
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2002agusm.p21a..12s&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Spring Meeting 2002, abstract #P21A-12
Other
5407 Atmospheres: Evolution, 5409 Atmospheres: Structure And Dynamics, 5435 Ionospheres (2459), 0394 Instruments And Techniques, 2129 Interplanetary Dust
Scientific paper
We plan a mission, called ``Venus Climate Orbiter'', in which we carry out a detailed and long-term monitoring observation of the mysterious atmosphere of the Earth's twin planet. The mission is scheduled to put a spacecraft, equipped with imaging cameras and plasma instruments, into Venus' orbit in 2009 after a cruise from the Earth by means of a M-V launching vehicle of ISAS. An outstanding and the most fundamental question regarding Venus is how its environment has been differentiated from the Earth's in spite of nearly identical dimensions of these twins. This should not be the question only to Venus but also a general question to every planet. One key to answer the question is believed to be obtained through the study of a generation and maintenance mechanism of so-called super-rotation of the Venusian atmosphere, a high-speed wind which encircles the planet in only 4 Earth days. Although the phenomenon itself has been well known, the mechanism of it remains still unsolved primarily because there has been no 3-D information of the atmospheric circulation which underlies an opaque cloud layer. The VCO mission is designed to acquire data sets essential to answer the above question. The imaging cameras utilize a recently-developed (and powerful) technique to remote probe the atmosphere, snapshots of Venus' night side in several atmospheric windows in the near IR region (1--2.4 μ m). This allows us to monitor the motion of cloud patches well below the visible cloud layer, our previous limit of visibility. Using a set of narrow-band filters, we image cloud features at several altitudes with spatial resolutions of 15--20 km at the sub-spacecraft point, good enough to achieve a few m/s of accuracy in determining the wind velocity. The column densities of carbon monoxide and water vapor will be also measured, yielding additional information on the atmospheric circulation. With the plasma instruments, on the other hand, we explore the upper atmosphere and the ionosphere. Observations of neutral and charged particle escapes from the planetary atmosphere are especially important, because of their significant influence on the atmospheric evolution as well as a general interest in the particle acceleration process including the solar-wind interactions. The cameras are expected to be active even in the cruising phase because it will be a unique opportunity to observe the infrared sky in a wide field of view with very low background level. The resonance structure of zodiacal dust disk rippled by the twins of our planetary system and its radial profile will be demonstrated by series of observations at different radial distances from the Sun. The VCO mission, which by itself is unique, will be valuable as part of an international collaborative work in a comprehensive study of Venus with several spacecraft, which include Lovoisier, Venus Express, and Ishtar missions of ESA, and Vespar mission of NASA. The basic concept, a mission overview, plus some details of VCO (including the onboard instruments) will be presented.
Abe Takuro
Imamura Takashi
Iwagami Naomoto
Kasaba Yasumasa
Nakamura Maho
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