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Things are finally looking up for NASA’s first missions to Venus in a generation

Most planetary scientists will tell you the heyday of Venus exploration was more than a generation ago. That is about to change. Two NASA missions are on track to launch to Venus in the early 2030s. The first, known as the Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging (DAVINCI), is now scheduled for launch in December 2030, a year earlier than previously planned. DAVINCI will send a parachute-assisted descent probe through the atmosphere of Venus, returning the first direct images of the planet’s surface since 1982.

大多数行星科学家会告诉你，金星探测的鼎盛时期已过去了一代人以上。这种情况即将改变。两项美国国家航空航天局（NASA）的任务有望在 2030 年代初发射前往金星。第一项任务被称为“金星深层大气稀有气体、化学和成像探测”（DAVINCI），目前计划于 2030 年 12 月发射，比原计划提前了一年。DAVINCI 将派遣一个由降落伞辅助的下降探测器穿过金星大气层，传回自 1982 年以来首批金星表面的直接图像。

A second mission, Venus Emissivity, Radio science, InSAR, Topography, And Spectroscopy (VERITAS), will follow with a launch in November 2032 to map the Venusian surface by radar from orbit. The European Space Agency is building another orbiter, Envision, for launch to Venus in 2032. The Venus armada might get started as soon as next year, when Rocket Lab aims to launch a privately funded probe to search for signs of organic material in the planet’s clouds. That was the update last week at a meeting of the Venus Exploration Analysis Group (VEXAG), a confab of scientists whose research interests focus on the scorching world just sunward from Earth.

第二项任务是“金星发射率、无线电科学、InSAR、地形和光谱学探测”（VERITAS），将于 2032 年 11 月发射，通过轨道雷达绘制金星表面地图。欧洲航天局正在建造另一个轨道飞行器“Envision”，计划于 2032 年发射前往金星。金星探测舰队最早可能在明年启动，届时火箭实验室（Rocket Lab）计划发射一个私人资助的探测器，以搜寻金星云层中存在有机物质的迹象。这是上周在金星探测分析小组（VEXAG）会议上更新的消息，该小组汇集了研究兴趣集中在地球向阳面那颗炽热星球的科学家们。

Rewinding the clock: It wasn’t easy for Venus to find its moment. Mars has hogged the spotlight for decades and remains the long-term lodestar for human spaceflight. The enigma of comets and asteroids lured the world’s space agencies into funding a series of robotic probes to study them. The icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn, some of which may hold the ingredients for life, are the latest hotspots for planetary exploration. But Venus ventures closer to Earth than any other planet, making it the easiest world for a spacecraft to reach, if not land on.

时光倒流：金星要迎来属于自己的时刻并不容易。几十年来，火星一直占据着聚光灯，并且仍然是人类航天飞行的长期指路明灯。彗星和小行星的谜团吸引了世界各国的航天机构资助一系列机器人探测器进行研究。木星和土星的冰冷卫星，其中一些可能蕴含生命成分，是行星探测的最新热点。但金星比任何其他行星都更靠近地球，这使得它成为航天器最容易到达（如果不是着陆的话）的世界。

Venus is roughly the same size as Earth and may have once shared a similar climate, but something happened to turn it into an inhospitable world with an atmosphere made of nearly pure carbon dioxide, clouds of toxic sulfuric acid, and temperatures hot enough to melt lead, about 872° Fahrenheit (467° Celsius). There’s still plenty to learn about Venus. The planet is less well mapped than Mars, and scientists aren’t exactly sure what triggered Venus’ runaway greenhouse effect. It is notoriously difficult to land on Venus, where the air pressure is 93 times that of sea level on Earth, equivalent to about 3,000 feet beneath the ocean’s surface.

金星的大小与地球大致相同，可能曾经拥有相似的气候，但某种原因使其变成了一个不适宜居住的世界，其大气层几乎由纯二氧化碳组成，云层中含有有毒的硫酸，温度高到足以熔化铅，约为 872 华氏度（467 摄氏度）。关于金星，还有很多东西需要了解。这颗行星的测绘程度不如火星，科学家们也不完全确定是什么引发了金星的失控温室效应。在金星上着陆极其困难，那里的气压是地球海平面的 93 倍，相当于海洋表面以下约 3000 英尺的压力。