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Venus sample return missions have been studied occasionally for the last forty years, but only recently has technology advanced to the point where this kind of mission has been realistic.
Within th Solar System, Venus presents a set of unique challenges to obtaining samples and returning them to Earth.
Summary of the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts study of new concepts for returning a sample from the surface of Venus using a high-temperature airplane and a balloon-borne platform carrying the return launch vehicle along with propellant-manufacturing capability.
Summary of the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts study of new concepts for returning a sample from the surface of Venus using a high-temperature airplane and a balloon-borne platform carrying the return launch vehicle along with propellant-manufacturing capability.
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This project will pioneer a new approach to return a sample from the surface of Venus. At 450°C and 92 bar pressure, the Venus surface is the most hostile environment in the solar system. This project merges an innovative carbon monoxide rocket concept using propellant made from the Venus atmosphere with innovations in high-temperature technology and solar aircraft. We turn an ambitious mission into a reality. The mission will return a sample from the scorching surface of Venus, using a novel multi-step approach incorporating new technology. The high-temperature solar aircraft collects the sample from the surface and carries it above the main cloud deck to a balloon platform with a launch vehicle & propellant manufacturing plant. The carbon monoxide/oxygen monopropellant is manufactured from the Venus atmosphere.
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A mission to return a sample to Earth from the surface of Venus faces a multitude of multidisciplinary challenges. In addition to the complications inherent in any sample return mission, Venus presents the additional difficulties of a deep gravity well essentially equivalent to Earth's and a hot-house atmosphere which generates extremes of high temperature, density, and pressure unmatched at any other known surface in the solar system. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory of the California Institute of Technology recently conducted a study to develop an architecture for such a mission; a major goal of this study was to identify technology developments which would need to be pursued in order to make such a mission feasible at a cost much less than estimated in previous. The final design of this mission is years away but the study results presented here show our current mission architecture as it applies to a particular mission opportunity, give a summary of the engineering and science trades which were made in the process of developing it, and identify the main technology development efforts needed.
VATMOS-SR (Venus ATMOSpheric - Sample Return) is a small space- craft mission concept that would return several gas samples from the upper atmosphere of Venus (< 110 km) to Earth for scientific analysis. This could be the first sample return mission for an extraterrestrial atmosphere and potentially the first sample return from an Earth-sized planet. The VATMOS-SR mission concept consists of a SmallSat atmospheric sampling probe (45 deg. sphere/cone geometry, <1 m diameter) that is designed to skim through the Venus upper atmosphere and ac- quire gas samples below the homopause altitude (around ~110 km altitude), where the different atmospheric gases are mixed. The velocity of the spacecraft where sampling would occur is expected to be between ~10.5 km/s and ~13.1 km/s, depending on the trajectory chosen (e.g. trajectory shown in Fig. 1).
VATMOS-SR (Venus ATMOSpheric - Sample Return) is a small space- craft mission concept that would return several gas samples from the upper atmosphere of Venus (< 110 km) to Earth for scientific analysis. This could be the first sample return mission for an extraterrestrial atmosphere and potentially the first sample return from an Earth-sized planet. The VATMOS-SR mission concept consists of a SmallSat atmospheric sampling probe (45 deg. sphere/cone geometry, <1 m diameter) that is designed to skim through the Venus upper atmosphere and ac- quire gas samples below the homopause altitude (around ~110 km altitude), where the different atmospheric gases are mixed. The velocity of the spacecraft where sampling would occur is expected to be between ~10.5 km/s and ~13.1 km/s, depending on the trajectory chosen.
This paper will discuss the basic mission and system elements of the Venus Sample Return (VSSR) mission.
A mission to return a sample to Earth from the surface of Venus faces a multitude of challenges.
A conceptual architecture for retrieval of a sample of the surface of Venus is proposed. The mission concept incorporates a high-temperature aircraft to retrieve the sample from the surface and raise it into the upper atmosphere, a balloon-borne platform to produce fuel from the carbon dioxide atmosphere of Venus, and a launch vehicle to bring the sample into Venus orbit, where it is retrieved by an Earth-return vehicle.
In cooperation with NASA's Solar System Exploration Subcommittee (SSES) the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is conducting a series of studies to assess the feasibility of planetary science missions proposed for launch in the 2006-2010 time frame and to prioritize technology development steps that will enable these missions.
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Introduction: Two high-rated Venus mission concepts proposed in the National Science Foundation Decadal Survey require a balloon to lift payloads from Venusian surface to high altitudes: Venus Surface Sample Return (VESSR) and Venus In-Situ Explorer (VISE). In case of VESSR the payload is a canister with the surface sample plus a Venus ascent vehicle (VAV), which is a rocket that takes the sample into orbit for rendezvous with an Earth return vehicle. VISE is envisioned as a more limited precursor mission where the surface sample is only taken to high altitudes so that non time-critical analyses can be performed. From the balloon point of view, the only difference between these two missions is that the VESSR payload to be lifted is very much larger than VISE because of the inclusion of the VAV. A key problem is that at the time the decadal survey was published, no high temperature balloon technology existed to implement either mission. Prior technology development efforts had concentrated on a single balloon that could operate across the entire 0-60 km altitude range, tolerating both the sulfuric acid aerosols and the extreme temperatures of -10 to +460 C. However, this problem was unsolved because no combination of sufficiently lightweight balloon material and manufacturing (seaming) technology was ever found to tolerate the high temperatures at the surface.