NASA’s New DAVINCI+ Mission to Venus

NASA has selected the DAVINCI (Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble-gases, Chemistry and Imaging ) mission as part of its Discovery program, and it will be the first spacecraft to enter the Venus atmosphere since NASA’s Pioneer Venus in 1978 and USSR’s Vega in 1985. Named for visionary Renaissance artist and scientist, Leonardo da Vinci, the DAVINCI mission will bring 21st-century technologies to the world next door. DAVINCI may reveal whether Earth’s sister planet looked more like Earth’s twin planet in a distant, possibly hospitable past with oceans and continents. The mission combines a spacecraft, developed by Lockheed-Martin, and a descent probe, developed at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. The spacecraft will map the cloud motions and surface composition of mountainous regions, including the Australia-sized Ishtar Terra. The descent probe will take a daring hour-long plunge through the massive and largely unexplored atmosphere to the surface, making detailed measurements