To Venus with spare parts

Abstract

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is studying the possibilities of developing a special spacecraft to fly to Venus to replace the more costly Venus Orbiting Imaging Radar (VOIR) mission. According to a recent JPL Newsletter, the new Venus Radar Mapper (VRM) spacecraft is to be constructed mainly of spare parts left over from other missions. The VRM is to be landed in the spring of 1988 by means of either the space shuttle/ two‐stage inertial upper‐stage (IUS) combination or, preferably, with the much more powerful shuttle/Centaur upper‐stage rocket. Once boosted into orbit around Venus, the scientific objections of VRM are clear. Venus has about the same mass and composition as the earth, and yet little is known about its geology. It will be possible for the VRM to map Venus by radar from an elliptical orbit, which is a lower cost option than would have been possible with the VOIR. VRM will carry a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) that operates with variable angles ranging from 51° for the lowest altitudes (250 km) to 24° for the highest altitudes (1900 km). A total of about 92% of Venus' surface will be mapped at a resolution of 1 km/line or better.