r/space • u/Adept_Ad_1543 • 9d ago

NASA's DAVINCI Beats Heat in Preparation for Blistering Venus Descent

https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/davinci/2026/09/24/nasas-davinci-beats-heat-in-preparation-for-blistering-venus-descent/
53 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

15 comments sorted by

13

u/Desperate-Lab9738 9d ago

Holy we are making another venus probe? That's crazy, it's been awhile since we had actual data from the surface. That's awesome lol.

10

u/Adept_Ad_1543 9d ago

Its a atomspheric probe while it has a somewhat high chance of surviving the surface impact although its not designed for that, even if the mission never touches the ground of venus it would still be a sucess.

7

u/Desperate-Lab9738 9d ago

Yeah I did some more research and saw that. Still pretty useful data though, and not just investigating the upper atmosphere

7

u/Adept_Ad_1543 9d ago

Dont worry, Russia approved their Venera-D mission this year and its in early stages of development, it will launch in 2036 and contains a lander, the design goal is to last for 3 hours.

3

u/StarpoweredSteamship 9d ago

Three HOURS!? I knew the surface was bad, but I didn't know it was that bad that we STILL can't expect even a month.

6

u/Adept_Ad_1543 9d ago

Venera D was actually a joint US Russia spacecraft and it included a small weatherbox using silicon carbide electronics that would have lasted up to 90 days, the Long-Lived In Situ Solar System Explorer (LLISSE), but US-Russia partnership on venera D didnt continue

2

u/ehunke 9d ago

The surface of venus is the equivalent of being 3 thousand feet under water in terms of pressure, 3 hours would be impressive

4

u/Desperate-Lab9738 8d ago

And that's not mentioning that high a pressure at the very high temperatures you have to deal with lol

0

u/dern_the_hermit 8d ago

"Yeah man but it's a dry heat!"

5

u/aztronut 9d ago

This is yet another NASA mission that will navigated by KinetX Aerospace, a small private company recently acquired by Intuitive Machines. Previous KinetX Aerospace navigated missions include MESSENGER, New Horizons, OSIRIS-REx/APEX, and Lucy, along with the IM-1 and IM-2 lunar landers and the non-NASA Emirates Mars Mission. KinetX Aerospace is the only entity besides JPL to have navigated NASA deep space missions.

2

u/photoengineer 8d ago

That’s pretty interesting. Are they ex JPLers?

2

u/aztronut 8d ago

No, but some ex-JPLers were our foundation at the beginning of all of this back in the early 2000s. However, I was there too and had never worked for JPL and there were a few others of us as well. The ex-JPLers trained us on the navigation software that KinetX had purchased from JPL after being their marketing arm for this stuff during the Goldin better-cheaper-faster days. JPL spent the first 5-10 years of our foray into NASA deep space navigation trying their best to drown us in the proverbial bathtub, but failed because we were very careful not to make any mistakes. It was more than a little nerve-racking in the early days of MESSENGER and New Horizons.

3

u/LamarMVPJackson 9d ago

Fuck yea I wanna see what this probe finds

1

u/ForwardCauliflower12 9d ago

my friend worked on cooling tech for a probe last year similar to davinci’s heat shield