NASA, how a rover could move on Venus: Youseef Ghali wins

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Nasa, How A Rover Could Move On Venus
Nasa, How A Rover Could Move On Venus

The objectives of NASA (and of the United States of America) mainly concern the Moon and Mars, as we well know from Donald Trump’s statements. However, the plans of the U.S. Space Agency are much broader and also include other planets. For example, you are trying to understand how a rover could move on Venus.

In particular, according to what reported by Engadget, the Space Agency announced contest winners which he launched in February 2020. The “competition” asked designers to submit their ideas for a possible rover capable of moving on Venus.

For the uninitiated, this Planet is actually closer to Earth than Mars (between our Planet and Venus the distance varies from 0.26 AU to 1.75 AU, while that relating to the Red Planet goes from 0.372 AU to 2.681 AU). Why then does NASA not point to Venus? It is easy to say: this Planet is a particularly inhospitable place since it is the most “red-hot” in the Solar System (it can reach 464 degrees centigrade, the melting point of lead is 327.5 degrees centigrade).

However, there are several other reasons that don’t allow you to point to Venus first than to Mars. For example, we must not forget the corrosive atmosphere generated from a mixture of sulfur dioxide, sulfuric acid, carbon dioxide and other gases. Not to mention that the winds of Venus exceeded the speed of 400 km / h in 2012.

In short, NASA has good reasons for wanting to dwell on Mars rather than Venus. However, that relatively little distance to Earth has always fascinated man, so much so that in the past there have been several attempts to explore this inhospitable planet. In 1970, the Soviets launched the Venera 7 probe, but it was only in 1981 that the twin probes Venera 13 and 14, launched one five days apart, managed to take a color photo of the surface of Venus (you can see them at the bottom of the news, credits to NASA).

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From then on there were other missions related to this planet, such as the one relating to the Magellan probe launched in 1989 and that of the ESA Venus Express dating back to 2005. How can we not mention IKAROS of the Japanese JAXA, the probe launched in 2010? However is about the future, the Russians are planning to launch Venera-D between 2026 and 2031.

However, so far we never had a rover on Venus, precisely because of its “hostility”. Despite this, the discussion about the possibility of returning to explore this planet has resurfaced at the beginning of 2020.

NASA’s initiative, which it has gathered, comes in this context ideas from designers from all over the globe. In particular, the goal was to find the right sensors to help the AREE system detect soils of a certain type.

The winning project, called “Venus Feelers” (you can see it in the video above) it is potentially able to “dodge” holes, large rocks and steep slopes for any rover. The author is the Egyptian designer Youssef Ghali, who won $ 15,000 thanks to his invention. There are also many other interesting ideas that could help the American Space Agency: for more information, please consult the official NASA website