VERITAS

Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography and Spectroscopy

future Mission
A gray spacecraft is illustrated over Venus with one of its instruments scanning the planet below.

VERITAS, and another mission called DAVINCI, will be the first NASA spacecraft to explore Venus since the 1990s. Veritas will discover the secrets of a lost habitable world, gathering data to reveal how the paths of Venus and Earth diverged. DAVINCI will study Venus in unprecedented detail from near the top of the clouds to the planet’s surface.

Type

Orbiter

Launch

No earlier than 2031

Target

Venus

Objective

Study Venus

About VERITAS

VERITAS: Exploring the Deep Truths of Venus

VERITAS is an acronym for "Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy." The word veritas means “truth” in Latin, and the mission will reveal the truth of how Venus’ and Earth’s paths diverged. Led by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the mission will help scientists understand how Venus became an inhospitable inferno, while Earth evolved to become home to an abundance of life.

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Venus
Global map of Venus' surface created using radar images from NASA's Magellan mission. VERITAS will improve on Magellan's maps by orders of magnitude, greatly enhancing our knowledge of appearance of features on the surface and their topography. 
NASA/JPL-Caltech

Seeking Answers

VERITAS will answer outstanding fundamental questions about the evolution of Earth's planetary twin. Does Venus have Earth-like continents that formed in the presence of water? Is its volcanism continuous, or does it come and go? Does the planet have plate tectonics? The mission will provide powerful insights about the interior of Venus that help us better understand our own planet.

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Artist's concept of volcano erupting on Venus.
This illustrates a region of Venus that may have active volcanoes, and subduction - areas where the surface is sinking into the mantle.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Peter Rubin

Borrowing From the Past

VERITAS is a solar-powered Venus orbiter with many similarities to NASA's MAVEN spacecraft at Mars. After arriving at Venus, the mission will use aerobraking to help slow the spacecraft and reshape its orbit. Once it completes aerobraking, VERITAS will circle the planet in a near-polar orbit, at its final science altitude of 250 miles (400 kilometers).

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Drawing of the VERITAS spacecraft
The design for the VERITAS spacecraft, seen here, has much in common with NASA's MAVEN spacecraft, which has orbited Mars since 2014.
NASA/JPL-Caltech

Meet the VERITAS Team

The VERITAS mission is led by Principal Investigator Sue Smrekar, and managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. The national space agencies of Italy, Germany, and France are also making major contributions to enable and enhance the mission.

The VERITAS team worked together for nearly a decade prior to the mission being selected for flight by NASA, proposing it a total of three times (twice for the Discovery program, and once for the New Frontiers program). Now, as VERITAS moves forward, the international collection of experts on the science team will use opportunities throughout the mission to train the next generation of planetary science leaders.

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Dr. Sue Smrekar sits for a photo in a garden. She's wearing a blue top with the VERITAS logo.
VERITAS Principal Investigator Dr. Suzanne Smrekar.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
A bright yellow volcano erupts on Venus spewing a column of smoke above an orange landscape with a dull Sun showing in the background.
This illustration of the large Quetzalpetlatl Corona located in Venus’ southern hemisphere depicts active volcanism and a subduction zone, where the foreground crust plunges into the planet’s interior.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Peter Rubin

VERITAS FIRSTS

  • Create the first global, high-resolution topographic and radar images of Venus
  • Make the first maps of regions where geologic processes are actively changing the surface of Venus
  • Produce the first near-global map of surface rock composition
  • Make the first determination of core composition and whether it is solid or liquid
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