DONG Xiaolong,
LIU Yang,
HE Jieying,
ZHANG Feng,
XU Jian,
ZHAO Yuyan,
WANG Yu,
ZHU Haotian,
WANG Yongmei,
WANG Wenyu,
CAI Zhiming
2022, 42(6): 1047-1059.
doi: 10.11728/cjss2022.06.yg33
Abstract:
Venus Volcano Imaging and Climate Explorer (VOICE) is an orbiting mission to investigate the Venusian volcanic and thermal evolution history, water and plate tectonics, internal structure and dynamics, climate evolution, possible habitable environment and life information in the clouds. Three state-of-the-art scientific payloads, the Polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar (PolSAR), the Microwave Radiometric Sounder (MWRS) and the Ultraviolet-Visible-Near Infrared Multi-Spectral Imager (UVN-MSI), will be flown on a polar-circular orbit of about 350 km. The PolSAR with meter resolution surface imaging capability enables refined exploration of Venusian tectonic and volcanic activity and evolution history. The MWRS, with a combination of a nadir-looking module and a limb-looking module, has the capability to refine the thermal structure and composition of the Venusian atmosphere, including near surface, below-inside and above the clouds, and will reveal the exchange and interaction between the surface and lower atmosphere. The MWRS will also investigate biosignatures, such as PH3 and NH3, in the cloud to further the fundamental scientific questions on the habitable environment and life information in Venus' atmosphere. The UVN-MSI can map the global atmosphere and look through the atmosphere with NIR windows. With combined observations by MWRS and UVN-MSI, our understanding of the atmospheric composition and climate evolution of Venus can be greatly improved. The scientific objective of the VOICE mission is to advance the understanding of the geological and thermal history and evolution of Venus, the mechanisms of the global circulation of Venusian atmosphere, past and current habitable environments, and the possible existence of life in the clouds of Venus. Through the combination of the state of art of payloads and technologies, the mission goals are to search for evidence of water and plate tectonic activities, reveal the type of volcanic activity and thermal evolution history of Venus; establish the composition and thermal structure of middle and lower atmosphere of Venus, and break through the understanding of Venusian atmospheric and climatic evolution; reveal the mechanism of runaway greenhouse effect, and explore whether Venus has a habitable environment and whether life (once) existed.
DONG Xiaolong, LIU Yang, HE Jieying, ZHANG Feng, XU Jian, ZHAO Yuyan, WANG Yu, ZHU Haotian, WANG Yongmei, WANG Wenyu, CAI Zhiming. Venus Volcano Imaging and Climate Explorer Mission (in Chinese). Chinese Journal of Space Science, 2022, 42(6): 1047-1059. doi: 10.11728/cjss2022.06.yg33.