Russia is apparently getting ready to return to the fiery surface of Venus.
The nation wants to launch Venera-D – a multi-vehicle mission involving a lander, balloon and orbiter – to Venus in 2036, Russian state media said on Tuesday (March 10).
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While NASA no longer cooperates on Russian space projects (except The International Space Station), Russia is still moving ahead with Venera-D. The mission is said to be part of a package of robotic spacecraft Russia plans to send to moon and Venus, which “currently occupies a central place” in the ambitions of the Russian space agency Roscosmossaid First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov in an interview with Razvedchik Journal, which was cited Tuesday by state-owned Russian outlet TASS.
A new Venus project would extend a string of successful landing missions in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s by previous Venera spacecraft operated by the former Soviet Union, which remains the only nation to have successfully landed and operated spacecraft in the hellish conditions of the Venusian surface.
“Let me remind you that back in 1970 our country succeeded in landing a spacecraft on another planet in the solar system. And it was Venus. Therefore, we will probably go in this direction first,” said Manturov.
One of Venera-D’s goals will be to look for microbial life in the clouds of Venusafter controversial recent findings of phosphine and ammonia (possible biomarkers) in the planet’s atmosphere.
The mission from 1970 Manturov mentioned was Venus 7which was one of four Soviet Venera spacecraft to successfully hit Venus and send back images from the surface, according to The Planetary Society. Venera 7 and other Soviet landing missions successfully endured temperatures of 900 degrees Fahrenheit (480 degrees Celsius) and a surface pressure over 90 times that of Earth at sea level to display a volcanic rock surface colored yellow (an effect of the sulfuric acid clouds that make up the atmosphere).
The Soviet Union launched more than a dozen Venera missions over 22 years. Venera 1 and Venera 2, launched in February 1961 and November 1965 respectively, were designed to fly by Venus, but did not return the necessary data. Venera 3 entered the atmosphere as planned in March 1966, but became silent.
The next three in the series, Veneras 4 through 6, successfully entered the atmosphere and sent back data to prepare for the first landing attempt, by Venera 7, which was launched in August 1970. The Soviet Union then sent nine more missions to Venus as landers and orbiters, ending with the successful Venera 16 in 1983.
NASAit European Space Agency and Japan between them have sent several orbiters to Venus in recent decades, and Russia is not the only nation that wants to get Venus back.
Both ESA and NASA have it assignment in development; NASA’s VERITAS and DAVINCI projects just survived threats of cancellation in the US budget for 2026. India plans to send its own Venus mission up for the first time in 2028 or so, while Rocket Lab and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology want to launch the private Venus Life Finder spacecraft out there already this year.
