Venus Science Design Reference Missions Enabled by Autonomy
Channel: COSPAR2021 Workshops
Date: 2021-02-02

Authors: Lorraine Fesq

Abstract: Venus is one of the four Terrestrial planets in the solar system, and is often described as Earth’s “twin” due to similarities in size and mass.  However, Venus is hellishly hot, devoid of oceans and bathed in a thick, reactive atmosphere. How, why and when did Earth’s and Venus’ evolutionary paths diverge? What are the implications for present-day Earth? These questions are central to understanding Venus in the context of terrestrial planets and their evolutionary processes. They drive the need for vigorous new exploration of Venus.  Future Venus exploration missions are challenged by the harsh environment and its damaging effects on space vehicles, which limits their lifetime.  Human-in-the-loop interactions likely will be limited during the short-lived missions. Autonomy can increase science return by providing in situ decisions, thereby cutting the cord with ground operators.  At the 2019 Autonomy Workshop, the Venus Team defined the following two future Venus exploration Design Reference Missions (DRM) that leveraged autonomous capabilities that will help uncover Venus’ early evolution.

DRM 1 is a near-term mission to characterize Venus’s interior, surface and atmosphere with a capable orbiter, a limited number of small spacecraft, an aerial vehicle, dropsondes, and a lander system. Required advancements in autonomy technology for this mission include networking capability, autonomous navigation, system-level autonomy and new sensors.

DRM 2 builds on the success of the first DRM and consists of a networked system of autonomous multiple assets.  This more ambitious scenario consists of an orbiter with a fleet of small spacecraft, an aerial vehicle or two, dropsondes, and lander vehicles. Additional advancements required for this mission include event detection and confirmation with coordinated dropsonde release, as well as advances in flight hardware, long-lived electronics (processors and memory) and spacecraft sensors.
Future Venus missions call for autonomy research with hardware needed for multiple networked assets. This hardware could be much like that deployed at Mars, and even hardware used for Earth-sensor networks, except that the hardware must be hardened and adapted to the temperature and pressure conditions of Venus, where necessary. Machine-based intelligence can optimize science return by operating independent of human intervention. It can vary from use of automated systems that carry out a set sequence of actions to increasingly autonomous systems with capabilities for situational awareness, decision-making and response. Autonomous capabilities could provide the breakthroughs needed to achieve these ambitious reference missions, if they can be proven trustworthy.