The Indian Space Research Organisation, after its Mangal success is likely to launch a mission to study Planet Shukra. The payload capacity of the planned satellite to be launched by ISRO is likely to be around 100 kg with 500W of power.
The satellite’s proposed highly inclined orbit around Venus will be around 500 Km X 60,000 km. This is then likely to be modified gradually, over several months to a shorten the satellite’s farthest point from Venus while in an elliptical orbit, depending on the final spacecraft configuration.
ISRO has taken its first step towards this mid-2023-planned mission to Shukra by issuing an announcement to the international space community to propose their scientific payloads to be carried on the mission.
This space-based experiments to study Venus is open to international scientists from various space agencies, research laboratories, academic institutions and universities.
ISRO, in its announcement posted on its website, said “Proposals are solicited from the international scientific community for novel space-based experiments to study specific areas of science interest on Venus. This has a specific objective to identify important science experiments that strengthen/complements overall science from the suite of pre-selected proposals from India on ISRO’s Venus mission.”
Proposers are expected to be currently involved in planetary exploration studies, the development of science instruments for space, and willing to develop space-worthy experiments, besides having access to associated facilities for test and instrument calibration.
Proposals will be accepted until midnight (IST) of December 20, 2018, ISRO said.
ISRO said it has identified broad research interests in Venus, which include researching the planet’s surface/sub surface features and re-surfacing processes; its atmospheric chemistry, dynamics and composition variations; and interaction with solar radiation/solar wind.
ISRO own payload has been planned as under:
1. S-Band synthetic aperture radar (SAR)
2. Advanced radar for topside ionosphere and subsurface sounding
3. Ultraviolet (UV) imaging spectroscopy telescope
4. Thermal camera
5. Cloud monitoring camera
6. Venus atmospheric spectro polarimeter
7. Airglow photometer
8. Radio occultation experiment
9. Ionospheric electron temperature analyser
10. Retarding potential analyser
11. Mass spectrometer
12. Plasma wave detector
