VERITAS

VERITAS is a NASA mission to orbit Venus and map its surface, to reveal how the paths of Venus and Earth diverged.^[1] The name stands for Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography and Spectroscopy, and veritas means truth in Latin.^[1] The mission is led by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.^[1]

The mission

VERITAS is a solar-powered orbiter. After arriving at Venus, it is to use aerobraking, dipping into the upper atmosphere to slow down and reshape its orbit, before settling into a near-polar orbit about 400 km above the surface.^[1] From there it is to make maps far more detailed than those of NASA's Magellan mission, which mapped Venus by radar.^[1]

The mission is to look for answers to fundamental questions: whether Venus has continents like Earth's that formed in the presence of water, whether its volcanism is continuous or comes and goes, and whether the planet has plate tectonics.^[1] It is also to make the first maps of regions where geologic processes are actively changing the surface.^[1]

Why Venus

Venus is similar to Earth in structure and size, but its thick atmosphere traps heat in a runaway greenhouse effect, making it the hottest planet in the solar system.^[1] Together with DAVINCI, VERITAS is to be the first NASA mission to Venus since the 1990s.^[1][2]