After the Moon and Mars, India Now Focuses on the Venus Orbiter Mission

Nitin Konde, Apoorva Bajj

Sep 20, 2024 — 3 min read

After the Moon and Mars, India Now Focuses on the Venus Orbiter Mission

The creation of the Venus Orbiter Mission (VOM), which will be a crucial step towards the Government's aim of exploring and studying Venus has been approved by the Union Cabinet, which is chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Venus, the planet that is nearest to Earth and is thought to have evolved under conditions that were similar to those of Earth, provides a one-of-a-kind opportunity to gain an understanding of how the habitats of various planets can change in quite different ways.

As part of the "Venus Orbiter Mission," which is going to be carried out by the Department of Space, a scientific spacecraft is going to be placed in orbit around the planet Venus. The purpose of this mission is to gain a deeper understanding of the surface and subsurface of Venus, as well as the atmospheric processes and the influence of the Sun on the atmosphere of Venus. The investigation of the factors that led to the transition of Venus, which is thought to have been livable at one point in time and was relatively comparable to Earth, would be of great assistance in understanding the development of the two worlds that are considered to be sister planets, namely Venus and Earth.

ISRO is going to be in charge of both the development of spacecraft and the launch of those spacecraft. With the established procedures that are now in place at ISRO, the Project will be handled and monitored efficiently. Through the use of the procedures that are already in place, the data that is created during the mission will be distributed to the scientific community.

The mission would make it possible for India to achieve self-sufficiency in essential fundamental technologies for manned missions, the return of lunar samples, and the scientific analysis of lunar samples. A considerable amount of Indian industry will be involved in the process of bringing this vision into reality. The Chandrayaan-4 science meetups and seminars have already been created as part of the plan to bring together the academic community in India.

The Mission Will Reveal the Secrets of Venus

The mission is anticipated to be completed in March 2028. It is anticipated that the Indian Venus mission will provide answers to a number of the currently unanswered scientific questions, which will lead to a variety of scientific results.

It is anticipated that this will result in a significant increase in employment opportunities and the spread of technology to other areas of the economy.

Mission’s Cost

There is a total of INR 1236 crore that has been granted for the Venus Orbiter Mission (VOM), and out of that amount, INR 824 crore will be spent on the development of the spacecraft.

In addition to the cost of the launch vehicle, the cost comprises the creation and realisation of the spacecraft, which includes its particular payloads and technological components. Additionally, the cost accounts for the cost of global ground station assistance for navigation and network.

Mission Will Promote Indigenisation

With the completion of this mission, India would be ready to conduct future planetary missions with greater payloads and more efficient orbit insertion strategies. During the process of developing the spacecraft and launch vehicle, there will be a considerable engagement of the Indian industry. The participation of a number of educational institutions and the provision of training to students during the pre-launch phase, which encompasses design, development, testing, test data reduction, calibration, and other related activities, is also envisioned.

Through the use of its one-of-a-kind equipment, the mission provides the Indian scientific community with fresh and significant scientific data, hence presenting prospects that are both emergent and novel.