Although a few days have passed since this announcement, the European Space Agency announced that it plans to go to Venus in the 2030s with the spacecraft called EnVision.
New Target: Venus
Günther Hasinger, science director of the European Space Agency (ESA), said in his statement on the subject, “A new era awaits us in the exploration of our neighbor, which is closest to our planet but very different from our planet.”
According to ESA’s statement, this mission aims to understand why Venus and Earth are so different from each other.
This Mission is not ESA’s First Venus Mission:
ESA has sent spacecraft to Venus before. Between 2005 and 2014, the space agency’s “Venus Express” spacecraft carried out a mission to study the thick, carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere of the planet Venus. The EnVision spacecraft will orbit the planet, just like its predecessor, the Venus Express. But since it will be equipped with much more advanced scientific instruments, it will be able to gather much more information than the previous spacecraft.
Although the project is carried out by ESA, NASA will design EnVision’s radar system called VenSar.