ISRO aims for Shukrayaan-1 after Chandrayaan-3 and Aditya-L1
Just over a month following the historic achievement of India’s Chandrayaan 3 soft landing on the Moon’s south pole region, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has now turned its attention towards Venus.
As per the information provided, unofficially known as Shukrayaan-1, the Venus mission has been formulated and certain payloads are currently in the development phase, as stated by ISRO Chairman S Somanath on Tuesday.
This announcement by Somanath highlights India’s ambitions in the field of space exploration, following the successful soft landing of Chandrayaan 3 and the launch of Aditya L-1, India’s mission to the Sun.
During his address at the Indian National Science Academy (INSA), Somanath revealed that ISRO is planning a mission to study Venus, as well as the deployment of two satellites to analyze space climate and its impact on Earth.
Additionally, a project to land a spacecraft on Mars is also in the works. “Venus is an incredibly intriguing planet. It possesses an atmosphere that is so dense that it is impenetrable to the surface. The nature of the surface, whether it is solid or not, remains unknown,” he explained. Let us now delve deeper into the objectives and purpose of this upcoming mission.
Shukrayaan-1, which is an unofficial name, is a combination of two Sanskrit words – ‘Shukra’, meaning Venus, and ‘Yaana’, meaning craft. According to a report from a Hindu source, the concept of a Venus mission originated in 2012.
In 2017, India’s leading space research organization initiated preliminary studies following a 23% increase in the budget for the Department of Space in the 2017-2018 fiscal year. During the same year, ISRO invited payload proposals from research institutes. The objective of this mission is to evaluate the surface and atmosphere of Venus, often referred to as “Earth’s twin”, and analyze its geological composition, which, as stated in a research paper by NASA, is dense and filled with toxic clouds.
Additionally, the Shukrayaan 1 mission may contribute to our understanding of the relationship between solar radiation and surface particles on Venus. India’s Venus mission will provide valuable insights for scientists and the space community into the future of the planet, considering that Earth itself was uninhabitable billions of years ago.
Meanwhile, NASA has expressed the possibility of life on Venus at present. However, some scientists do not dismiss the potential existence of microbes in the upper clouds, where the temperature is cooler and the pressure is similar to that of Earth’s surface.
These scientists have also detected the presence of phosphine, an indicator of potential microbial life, in the Venusian clouds. While India’s Venus Mission is already underway, specific details such as the launch date and other important aspects of the project have yet to be disclosed by ISRO.
