Venus is Earth’s neighbor and Earth’s closest sibling in the solar system. But the surface environment is very different. Due to the extreme greenhouse effect caused by carbon dioxide, the surface temperature is above 460 degrees Celsius and the atmospheric pressure is close to 100 times that of Earth. So, unlike Mars, even when a probe lands on the surface, the exploration time and range is very short. What scientists have learned about Venus pales in comparison to Mars.
Scientists at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) are working on a number of studies to overcome this problem. One of them is to launch a high altitude balloon or flying star on Venus. No matter how high Venus is, the temperature and pressure drop so that the probe and the astronauts can survive for a long time.
Scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) recently conducted flight tests of an aerobot, a prototype of the Venus balloon probe, in the Nevada desert. The aerobot, a helium balloon with a diameter of 15m, is made of special materials that can withstand the high temperature and high pressure environment of Venus. FYI, this is a scale model, and a full scale model is being developed about three times the size.
The prototype aerobot flew to a height of about 1 km from Earth, but the probe to be sent to Venus rises to a height of 52 to 62 km above the surface and directly examines the upper atmosphere of Venus, which no one has never been to him. . The atmosphere of Venus is high in pressure and density, so even a balloon of the same size is advantageous for flying higher than Earth. And at this altitude, the pressure and temperature are similar to those of Earth, allowing the probe to survive for months or more.
The target exploration period of the Venus balloon probe is more than 100 days, and it is expected that it will not be difficult to secure a power source because solar energy is readily available because it flies above the thick clouds of Venus. There is no risk of solar panels becoming dusty like on Mars, and the closer they are to the sun, the more energy the same size can produce. There is a separate helium storage balloon inside the aerobot, so the height can be adjusted.
In fact, NASA is not the first to try to launch a balloon over Venus. Already in the former Soviet Union, Vega 1 and Vega 2 flew small balloons for about 46 hours. However, there was a limit to the information that could be gathered due to technical limitations at the time. NASA’s next-generation Venus balloon probe could gather much more information over a longer period of time. It is worth noting whether a balloon probe that will fly above the clouds of Venus, which no one has ever been to, will become a reality.
Gordon Jung Science Columnist jjy0501@naver.com
