The Indian Venusian orbiter mission is a proposed orbiter to Venus by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to study the atmosphere of Venus.[5][6][7] If funded, it would be launched some time after the Mars Orbiter Mission 2 in the early 2020s.[2][4][8] The orbiter, depending on its final configuration, will have payload capability of approximately 175 kg with 500W available power.[1] Initial elliptical orbit around Venus is expected to have 500 km periapsis and 60,000 km apoapsis.[1][9]
The mission concept was first presented at a Tirupati space meet in 2012.[10]
The mission was approved to complete preliminary studies following the 2017–18 request for grants to the Department of Space.[11][12]
Current status
Based on the success of Chandrayaan and the Mars Orbiter Mission, ISRO has been studying the feasibility of future interplanetary missions to Mars and Venus, the closest planetary neighbours to Earth. The Government of India, in its budget for 2017–18 gave the Department of Space a 23% increase. Under the space sciences section, the budget mentions provisions "for Mars Orbiter Mission II and Mission to Venus".[13]
On 19 April 2017, ISRO made an 'Announcement of Opportunity' seeking payload proposals from Indian academia based on broad mission specifications.[1] Currently, the Venus mission is in the study phase and ISRO has not sought the Indian government's full approval.[14]
Potential collaboration with France
The space agencies of India (ISRO) and France (CNES) are holding discussions to collaborate on this mission and jointly develop autonomous navigation and aero braking technologies.[15]
In addition, French astrophysicist Jacques Blamont with his experience from Vega program expressed his interest to U R Rao to use inflated balloons to study the Venusian atmosphere. Just like during the Vega missions, these instrumented balloons could be deployed from an orbiter and take prolonged observations while floating in the relatively mild upper atmosphere of the planet.[16][17] So far there has been no formal indication of acceptance of Blamont's proposal.