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NASA plans two visits to Earth’s nearest neighbour Venus

03 June 2021 22:24 (UTC +04:00)

NASA has announced missions to Earth’s nearest neighbour Venus, APA reports citing Euronews.

After decades of exploring other planets and moons, the space agency is returning its sights to the solar system’s hottest planet, which it last visited with its Magellan spacecraft in orbit in 1989.

NASA’s new administrator, Bill Nelson, announced the missions during his first major address to employees on Wednesday.

One mission named DaVinci Plus will analyse the thick, cloudy Venusian atmosphere in an attempt to determine whether the inferno planet ever had an ocean and was possibly habitable.

The other, Veritas, will seek a geologic history by mapping the rocky planet's surface.

Each mission, launching sometime around 2028 to 2030, will receive $500 million for development under NASA's Discovery program.

DaVinci Plus and Veritas beat two other proposed missions in a “competitive, peer-reviewed process”, which would have seen probes sent to Jupiter’s moon Io and Neptune’s moon Triton.