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Mission Design Challenge

Map Venus Beneath Its Clouds

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Learning goals
  • Match instruments to the science goals of the challenge.
  • Balance mass, power, cost, risk, and communication throughput.
  • Explain your design tradeoffs in your own words.
Help & glossary
  • Meters update in real time so you can see the impact of each choice.
  • Errors are red; warnings are amber. You can still launch with warnings.
  • Your written explanation stays on this device.

This is an educational mission-design simulation. Scores and simplified engineering values do not represent an approved or operational NASA mission.

1. Briefing2. Platform3. Power4. Comms5. Instruments6. Timeline7. Explanation8. Results

Mission briefing

Venus's thick sulfuric-acid clouds hide the entire surface at visible wavelengths. Your task is to design an orbiter that can penetrate the clouds to produce a global topographic and mineralogic map.

Destination
Venus (polar orbit)
Mission type
Radar orbiter
Environment
hot-atmosphere, acidic-clouds, high-radiation

Science goals

  • Produce a global topographic map with radar altimetry.
  • Image surface morphology through the clouds using SAR.
  • Map surface mineralogy using near-IR spectral windows.

Sources