The Discovery Program is a series of Solar System exploration missions funded by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) through its Planetary Missions Program Office. The cost of each mission is capped at a lower level than missions from NASA's New Frontiers or Flagship Programs. As a result, Discovery missions tend to be more focused on a specific scientific goal rather than serving a general purpose.
Observations of the planet Venus include those in antiquity, telescopic observations, and from visiting spacecraft. Spacecraft have performed various flybys, orbits, and landings on Venus, including balloon probes that floated in the atmosphere of Venus. Study of the planet is aided by its relatively close proximity to the Earth, compared to other planets, but the surface of Venus is obscured by an atmosphere opaque to visible light.
Sol Alan Stern is an American engineer, planetary scientist and space tourist. He is the principal investigator of the New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Chief Scientist at Moon Express.
The New Frontiers program is a series of space exploration missions being conducted by NASA with the purpose of furthering the understanding of the Solar System. The program selects medium-class missions which can provide high science returns.
Venera-D is a proposed Russian space mission to Venus that would include an orbiter and a lander to be launched in 2029. The orbiter's prime objective is to perform observations with the use of a radar. The lander, based on the Venera design, would be capable of operating for a long duration on the planet's surface. The "D" in Venera-D stands for "dolgozhivuschaya," which means "long lasting" in Russian.
The exploration of Uranus has, to date, been through telescopes and a lone probe by NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft, which made its closest approach to Uranus on January 24, 1986. Voyager 2 discovered 10 moons, studied the planet's cold atmosphere, and examined its ring system, discovering two new rings. It also imaged Uranus' five large moons, revealing that their surfaces are covered with impact craters and canyons.
Neptune has been directly explored by one space probe, Voyager 2, in 1989. As of 2024, there are no confirmed future missions to visit the Neptunian system, although a tentative Chinese mission has been planned for launch in 2024. NASA, ESA, and independent academic groups have proposed future scientific missions to visit Neptune. Some mission plans are still active, while others have been abandoned or put on hold.
The Venus In Situ Explorer (VISE) has been a lander mission concept proposed since 2003 by the Planetary Science Decadal Survey as a space probe designed to answer fundamental scientific questions by landing and performing experiments on Venus.
The Science Mission Directorate (SMD) of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) engages the United States' science community, sponsors scientific research, and develops and deploys satellites and probes in collaboration with NASA's partners around the world to answer fundamental questions requiring the view from and into space.
James Lauer Green is an American physicist and retired chief scientist for NASA. He received his Ph.D. in Space Physics from the University of Iowa in 1979 and then worked at NASA until his retirement on 1 January 2022.
The Planetary Science Decadal Survey is a serial publication of the United States National Research Council produced for NASA and other United States Government Agencies such as the National Science Foundation. The documents identify key questions facing planetary science and outlines recommendations for space and ground-based exploration ten years into the future. Missions to gather data to answer these big questions are described and prioritized, where appropriate. Similar decadal surveys cover astronomy and astrophysics, earth science, and heliophysics.
VERITAS is an upcoming mission from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) to map the surface of the planet Venus in high resolution. The combination of topography, near-infrared spectroscopy, and radar image data will provide knowledge of Venus's tectonic and impact history, gravity, geochemistry, the timing and mechanisms of volcanic resurfacing, and the mantle processes responsible for them.
DAVINCI is a planned mission for an orbiter and atmospheric probe to the planet Venus. Together with the separate VERITAS mission, which will also study Venus, it was selected by NASA on 2 June 2021 to be part of their Discovery Program. Its acronym is inspired by Leonardo da Vinci in honor of his scientific innovations, aerial sketches and constructions.
The selection process for Mission 13 and 14 of the Discovery program began in February 2014, as NASA drafted an Announcement of Opportunity (AO) for the next Discovery mission. The winning mission proposals received $450 million in funding towards mission development and construction, along with bonus funding if missions were able to incorporate certain technologies. For Discovery Mission 13 and 14, NASA received 28 proposals, 16 of which notably centered around small Solar System bodies. Lucy, a multiple-flyby mission to the Jupiter trojans, and Psyche, a mission to the metallic asteroid 16 Psyche, were announced as the winners of the competition in January 2017, with launches in October 2021 and October 2023, respectively.
Venus Atmospheric Maneuverable Platform (VAMP) is a mission concept by the aerospace companies Northrop Grumman and LGarde for a powered, long endurance, semi-buoyant inflatable aircraft that would explore the upper atmosphere of planet Venus for biosignatures as well as perform atmospheric measurements. The inflatable aircraft has a trapezoidal shape that is sometimes called delta wing or flying wing, and would have dual electric-driven propellers that would be stowed during atmospheric entry.
EnVision is an orbital mission to Venus being developed by the European Space Agency (ESA) that is planned to perform high-resolution radar mapping and atmospheric studies. EnVision is designed to help scientists understand the relationships between its geological activity and the atmosphere, and it would investigate why Venus and Earth took such different evolutionary paths. The probe was selected as the fifth medium mission (M5) of ESA's Cosmic Vision programme in June 2021, with launch planned for 2031. The mission will be conducted in collaboration with NASA, with the potential sharing of responsibilities currently under assessment.
CubeSat UV Experiment (CUVE) is a space mission concept to study the atmospheric processes of the planet Venus with a small satellite. Specifically, the orbiter mission would study an enigmatic ultraviolet light absorber of unknown composition situated within the planet's uppermost cloud layer that absorbs about half the solar radiation downwelling in the planet's atmosphere.
Martha Scott Gilmore is an American planetary geologist. She is the George I. Seney Professor of Geology and Director of Graduate Studies at Wesleyan University.
Sushil K. Atreya is a planetary scientist, educator, and researcher. Atreya is a professor of Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
