Now, ISRO plans for mission to Venus in 2023, invites foreign experiments

Bengaluru, Nov 22: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in Bengaluru will send an orbiter to Venus in 2023 and has invited scientists from around the world to submit proposals for instruments to carry along.

The mission would be ISRO's first to Venus, modified and upgraded from early sketches made after the agency's success with the Mangalyaan Mars mission that was launched in November 2013.

The orbiter will study the planet between 500 kilometres to 60,000 kilometres from the surface in an elliptical orbit around the planet - similar to the Mangalyaan mission.

ISRO has opened up ideas for the mission's experiments to other space agencies, universities and researchers from around the world. The mission will carry the shortlisted experiments to Venus's orbit in mid-2023.

Like Earth, Venus is some 4.5 billion years old; the planets are of similar size and mass. But Venus has witnessed a runaway greenhouse phenomenon, leading to a dense, carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere that may offer scientists clues about the development of Earth's atmosphere.