VERITAS (Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy): A Discovery Mission

The CO2 profile and analytical model for the Pioneer Venus Large Probe neutral mass spectrometer

“…Venus is again emerging as an exciting target for planetary exploration with multiple upcoming missions including DAVINCI and VERITAS from NASA (Garvin et al, 2022, Smrekar et al, 2022, EnVision from ESA (Ghail, 2021), Shukrayaan-1 from the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) (Antonita et al, 2022, Sundararajan, 2021, and a potential orbiter mission from the China National Space Administration (CNSA). Likewise, astrobiology considerations for Venus have a gained substantial interest with the 2023-2032 Decadal Report highlighting that "Venus's atmosphere has been suggested as a prospective abode for life" with a potential habitable zone in the middle clouds.…”

Improving the VERITAS Orbit Reconstruction Using Radar Tie Points

“…In this work, we assume data arcs (in line with navigation assumptions [7]) during which two 8 h two-way Ka-band Doppler tracking data batches are processed. The spacecraft tracking system, allowing simultaneous two-way X-and Ka-band Doppler and ranging, has heritage from ESA's BepiColombo mission and is expected to provide the same level of performance [1,2,4]. For Doppler data, we use a 10 s integration time and draw the Doppler noise from a uniform distribution ranging between 0.015 and 0.038 mm/s to account for the noise variability observed by Ref.…”

“…T HE recently selected NASA Discovery mission, Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy (VERITAS), will orbit Earth's neighboring planet and gather foundational datasets that will address many open questions on its dynamic history and active geophysical processes [1]. The scientific objectives of VERITAS will be enabled by a gravity investigation, relying on the Integrated Deep Space Transponder (IDST) operating in both X-and Ka-band [2][3][4], the X-band Venus Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (VISAR) [5], and an infrared spectrometer, the Venus Emissivity Mapper (VEM) [6].…”

Venus, the Planet: Introduction to the Evolution of Earth’s Sister Planet

“…This broad-based interest in Venus recently aligned with mission proposals that had relatively low technical risk. Geophysical orbiters like VERITAS (e.g., Smrekar et al 2022b) and EnVision are analogous to Magellan but will return orders-of-magnitude better data after thirty years of instrument development. The DAVINCI mission will use geochemistry instruments that would have been exotic in the 1990s but now have high heritage from recent Mars missions (Garvin et al 2022).…”