PLANET-C: Venus Climate Orbiter Mission of Japan

Details PLANET-C: Venus Climate Orbiter Mission of Japan PLANET-C: Venus Climate Orbiter Mission of Japan

Aug 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006iaujd..10e..24u&link_type=abstract

Progress in Planetary Exploration Missions, 26th meeting of the IAU, Joint Discussion 10, 21-22 August 2006, Prague, Czech Repub

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Venus is one of the most attractive targets in the solar system when we seek to understand the formation of the terrestrial environment. Venus is our nearest neighbor, and has a size very similar to the Earth's; however, previous spacecraft missions discovered an extremely dense (~90 bar) and dry CO[2] atmosphere with H[2]SO[4]-H[2]O clouds floating at high altitudes, and exotic volcanic features covering the whole planet. The abundant gaseous CO[2] brings about a high atmospheric temperature (~740 K) near the surface via greenhouse effect. The atmospheric circulation is also much different from the Earth's. The mechanisms which sustain such conditions are unclear and considered to be the keys to understand the origin of the terrestrial environment. In spite of the many previous missions that explored Venus, such as the Venera, Pioneer Venus, Vega and Magellan, most of the fundamental questions raised so far still remain unsolved. The Venus Climate Orbiter mission (PLANET-C), one of the future planetary missions of Japan, aims at understanding the atmospheric circulation of Venus. Meteorological data will be obtained by globally mapping clouds and minor constituents successively with 4 cameras at ultraviolet and infrared wavelengths, detecting lightning with a high-speed imager, and observing vertical structures of the atmosphere with radio science technique. The equatorial elongated orbit with westward revolution fits the observations of the movement and temporal variation of the Venusian atmosphere which rotates westward. The systematic, continuous imaging observations will provide us with an unprecedented large dataset of the Venusian meteorology. Additional targets of the mission are the exploration of the ground surface and the observation of zodiacal light. The mission will complement the ESA's Venus Express, which also explores the Venusian environment with different approaches. The spacecraft will be launched and arrive at Venus in 2010, and will perform 2 years of operation.

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