The project to create a venerian probe will receive funding from the agency for science

The desire of Russian scientists to explore Venus with the help of a specialized apparatus has long been known. Experts from the Russian Federation plan to repeat and improve the results of the work of their predecessors, who sent a probe to Venus many years ago. The last station for the study of the neighbor of the Earth was the Soviet Vega-2 , which arrived on Venus in 1985. Unfortunately, the problem lies in the financing of the project. It is very expensive, as well as most of the research projects from the space sector, money in the Roscosmos budget is not provided for this.



But not "Roskosmos" united. The creation of spacecraft for work in orbit and the surface of the neighbor of the Earth will be financed by the Federal Agency for Scientific Organizations (FANO) . The launch of the device, subject to the successful implementation of all phases of the project, is scheduled for 2026-2027, as reported by "Izvestia". According to experts, the design of such a station will cost several hundred million rubles. It is worth noting that over the past 30 years, Russia has not been able to implement any of the projects for the study of neighboring planets.



But now everything can change. “Together with FANO, we are developing a special program dedicated to the study of Venus. In order to obtain the necessary funding, we have begun to develop a comprehensive research program for Venus, ”said IKI Director Lev Zeleny.



Some time ago, the cost of designing and creating an interplanetary Venus station was included in the Federal Space Program of Russia for 2006-2015. Unfortunately, in preparing the draft program for 2016-2015, funding for Venus research projects had to be removed. They crossed out this line because of the sequestration.



Anyway, now the project received support from FANO. Representatives of the agency told about this: “On November 3, 2017, the first organizational meeting with participants of Venus D was held in FANO. IKI is the head organization for the preparation of an integrated program of scientific research of Venus. ” How much is planned to allocate money to support the project, is still unknown.



According to the head of the Institute of Space Policy, Ivan Moiseyev, this is, first of all, the development of a technical proposal or the preparation of an sketch project. “There are very cheap projects, and there are very expensive ones. The scatter reaches hundreds of times. I think that the development of documentation requires several hundred million rubles. The sketch project is about 10% of the total expenses, ”he said.



As for the stages of the project, there are several. The main one is launching a complex of landing and orbiters to Venus. It is worth noting that the project is being implemented by scientists from different countries. Thus, a joint working group to study the "Morning Star" was established in 2013. This group includes representatives from both Russia and the United States. After the Ukrainian events in 2014, the work of the group was suspended, but in 2015 the project began to be discussed again. In October of this year, the next round of negotiations took place.



According to the results, Russia within the framework of the project will be responsible for the creation of an orbiter and a landing station, including their launch from the Earth. The orbiter is designed for service for three full years. The planting device, which will lower all devices into place, will need to work more than two hours. It will be extremely difficult to ensure its normal functioning under conditions of enormous pressure (100 times higher than the earth's pressure) and Celsius temperatures of 700 degrees or even higher.





Unmanned aircraft in the clouds of Venus. Source: Northrop Grumman



As for the American side, NASA proposes to complete the mission with its own small orbiter as well as with several balloon probes. They will be ejected in the atmosphere of Venus at an altitude of about 50-55 km. In addition, some experts propose to add to the toolkit of the mission also an aircraft capable of flying in the atmosphere of Venus. He could, in particular, confirm or deny the possibility of life in the clouds of this planet. Some scientists suggest the presence of some life forms in the clouds of Venus, like bacteria that were found in the clouds on Earth.



It is planned to send all the equipment to its destination using a Russian launch vehicle. It can be "Angara-A5" or "Proton".