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ESA approves EnVision mission!

1 February 2024

On Thursday January 25, 2024, the European Space Agency’s Scientific Program Committee (SPC) officially approved the start of development of the next European mission to Venus. In addition to its scientific co-responsibility for the mission, Observatoire de Paris - PSL, through its teams, is playing an essential role in the design and preparation of its instruments and the Radio Science experiment.

ESA’s Science Program Committee (SPC) has approved the start of development of the EnVision mission, dedicated to the study of Venus as part of the Cosmic Vision program’s M5 mission.

Now that the study phase is considered complete, ESA is committed to implementing the mission. After the selection of a European manufacturer in autumn 2024, the design of the probe and its scientific payload will be finalized, followed by their development.

EnVision is scheduled to be launched by an Ariane 62 rocket from Kourou in 2031.

A terrestrial planet. - The sun rises above the thick cloud cover, reflected in the solar panels of the EnVision mission. The instrument suite will provide space coverage of Venus during the nominal phase of the mission, from a low polar orbit with a period of around 1h40.
© ESA

Setting course for our largest neighbor

The exploration of Venus offers a unique opportunity to answer fundamental questions about the evolution of Earth-like planets and long-term habitability in a planetary system.

Many scientific questions remain in our understanding of the causes of the divergent evolution of Venus and Earth throughout the history of the Solar System. Studying and better understanding how the interior, surface and atmosphere of Earth and Venus evolved into two such different planets today, is essential to constrain what makes a terrestrial-mass planet habitable over the long term. And this point is particularly topical at a time when thousands of terrestrial exoplanets are expected to be discovered, at various stages of their evolution.

A little-known variety of landforms
Beneath its thick cloud cover, the mysterious Venus presents a fascinating surface covered with volcanoes, craters, faults, highlands and lava fields, covering more than three times the area of all the Earth’s continents. These complex terrains were revealed by images taken by NASA’s Magellan mission in the early 1990s. EnVision will take radar images about ten times more detailed of much of this terrain, to answer questions about the long-term evolution of the interior, surface or composition of the atmosphere.
© ESA

From the core to the upper atmosphere

Designed in partnership with NASA, which will supply the main instrument (the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s VenSAR synthetic aperture radar), EnVision will reveal how volcanism, tectonics and the planet’s geological history in general have shaped the surface and atmosphere of Venus as we know it today.

Thanks to its very low orbit, comparable to that of the ISS around the Earth, the mission will also explore the planet’s interior, gathering gravimetric data on the structure and characteristics of the core, mantle and lithosphere.

<multi>[fr]Une mission pour l'étude simultanée de la surface, l'intérieur et l'atmosphère de anotre voisine.[en]A mission to simultaneously study our neighbor's surface, interior and atmosphere.</multi>
A mission to simultaneously study our neighbor’s surface, interior and atmosphere.
EnVision will be the first mission to simultaneously study Venus from its core to its upper atmosphere, using an instrument suite designed for this coordinated approach to the mission’s scientific objectives, to characterize the nature of the interactions between these different envelopes: upper and lower atmosphere, surface and subsurface, mantle and core. Three different spectrometers, VenSpec-M, VenSpec-H and VenSpec-U, will study the composition and structure of the surface and atmosphere. Teams from Observatoire de Paris-PSL will play a key role in preparing these instruments. Finally, a radio science experiment will study the planet’s internal structure and the properties of its atmosphere.
© ESA

A second radar designed by the Italian space agency, SRS, will send echoes beneath the surface to characterize the various geological interfaces.

Finally, a suite of three spectrometers in the ultraviolet and near-infrared ranges will precisely measure the interactions between the interior, surface and atmosphere, and help us understand how these geophysical envelopes interact with each other.

France and Observatoire de Paris-PSL strongly committed

CNES is heavily involved in this mission, not only as a contributor to ESA’s mandatory scientific program budget, but also through the supply of its scientific payload.

France’s contribution to the on-board instruments is very significant:

  • The Laboratoire de Planétologie de Nantes Université is responsible for the radio-science experiment, in which the Institut de mécanique céleste et de calcul des éphémérides (Observatoire de Paris - PSL) is participating;
  • The VenSpec-U ultraviolet imaging spectrometer will be built by a consortium of French space laboratories: LATMOS, LESIA and IRAP;
  • The optical part of the VenSpec-M infrared multi-spectral imager will be designed, developed and tested at LESIA, with technical support from CNES.

Thomas Widemann, astrophysicist at Observatoire de Paris-PSL, coordinated the EnVision mission science team during the proposal, selection and adoption phases between 2016 and 2024.

Observatory teams are also playing a key role in preparing the onboard instruments for Venus, as well as designing the hardware and software tools needed to test system performance prior to integration.

French contribution to the EnVision mission



  • GET (CNES/CNRS/IRD/ Université Toulouse III Paul Sabatier)
  • IMCCE (Obs. Paris/CNRS/Sorbonne Université/Université Lille)
  • IPAG (CNRS/Université Grenoble Alpes)
  • IRAP (CNES/CNRS/Université Toulouse III Paul Sabatier)
  • ISTerre (CNRS/IRD/Université Grenoble Alpes/Université Savoie Mont Blanc)
  • LATMOS (CNRS/Sorbonne Université/UVSQ))
  • LESIA (Obs. Paris/CNRS/Sorbonne Université/Université Paris Cité)
  • LMD (CNRS/Ecole Polytechnique/ENS-PSL/Sorbonne Université)
  • LPG (CNRS/Nantes Université/Université d’Angers)

A fleet of three missions

For its part, NASA has selected two other missions to Venus in 2021 as part of its Discovery program:

  • DAVINCI (Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging)
  • and VERITAS (Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy).

On VERITAS, Observatoire de Paris-PSL is heavily involved in the design and supply of sub-systems for the VEM instrument.

Thomas Widemann, a member of the VERITAS scientific team and coordinator of the EnVision scientific team, is playing a key role in the international scientific coordination of the ’Venus decade’ which is due to begin in 2030.

Together, EnVision, DAVINCI and VERITAS will provide the most comprehensive study of Venus ever carried out.