[[Home|🏠]] <span style="color: LightSlateGray">></span> [[Missions]] <span style="color: LightSlateGray">></span> Venus Life Finder ## Mission Details **Customer**: Private mission (Rocket Lab & MIT-led science team) **Program**: Venus Life Finder (VLF) series Rocket Lab is developing the first privately funded mission to Venus, designed to search for supporting evidence of organic compounds in the planet’s cloud layers, potential signatures of life. Using a [[Neutron]] launch vehicle and [[Pioneer]] spacecraft as the cruise stage (likely hitching the ride on a customer payload), the mission will deliver a small atmospheric entry probe to ~48-60 km altitude, where Venus’ atmospheric conditions are relatively temperate compared to the surface. While more than 30 Venus missions have been conducted by government agencies, this will mark the **first private exploration mission to Venus**, with a science payload developed by a team led by [MIT’s Prof. Sara Seager](https://physics.mit.edu/faculty/sara-seager/) and the Venus Life Finder initiative. 🔗 [Venus Life Finder Mission Study](https://arxiv.org/pdf/2112.05153) ![[Pasted image 20250816191354.png]] ## Launch - **Vehicle**: Rocket Lab [[Neutron]] - **Bus**: [[Pioneer]] (interplanetary cruise stage) - **Location**: [[Launch Complex 3]] - **Timeline**: Unknown ## Probe #### Summary A small entry capsule will detach from Photon upon arrival at Venus, designed to survive atmospheric entry and collect science data during a short descent through the cloud layer. ![[Pasted image 20250816154523.png]] #### Specifications | Specification | Details | | -------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **Heat Shield** | [HEET](https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/ames/what-is-heeet/) woven thermal protection material, survivable to ~4,500 °F (2480 °C) | | **Instrumentation** | [AutoFluorescence Nephelometer (AFN)] - detects aerosol particle properties and possible organics | | **Mission Lifetime** | ~5 minutes (from entry to data transmission cutoff) | | **Science Output** | Particle size distribution, number density, complex refractive index, asphericity, fluorescence detection | #### Payload ##### AutoFluorescence Nephelometer (AFN) Developed by [Droplet Measurement Technologies](https://www.dropletmeasurement.com/), the AFN will measure scattered light of 440 nm wavelength and fluorescence of in 470 to 520 nm wavelength range from single aerosol particles with the goal to detect and derive particle size and number density, derive complex reflective index, quantify asphericity of particles, and detect fluorescence from particles. **Mass**: < 1 kg **Power**: < 50 W ![[afn 1.avif]] ## Objectives ✅ **Objective #1**: Search for the presence of organic material within cloud-layer particles as a function of altitude. Autofluorescence is a way to detect (but not identify) organics inside cloud droplets on Venus. Many organic compounds are known to fluoresce when subject to UV, owing to delocalized ring electrons. Toward this goal, the probe will identify UV autofluorescence in cloud particles, if present. ✅ **Objective #2**: Seek anomalous cloud components, including aspherical particles, and their relative abundance as a function of altitude. Aspherical particles are not pure liquid and therefore cannot be pure sulfuric acid. Constraining particle composition can support evidence of habitable conditions inside cloud particles. Toward this goal, the probe will determine cloud particle size distribution, identify asphericity, and estimate the complex index of refraction of cloud particles as a function of altitude. ## Links 🔗 [Rocket Lab – First Private Mission to Venus](https://rocketlabcorp.com/missions/upcoming-missions/first-private-mission-to-venus/) 🔗 [MIT / Morningstar Missions – Payload Details](https://www.morningstarmissions.space/rocketlabmissiontovenus#comp-m40b759n) 🔗 [Planetary Society – Mission Overview](https://www.planetary.org/space-missions/rocket-lab-venus-mission) 🔗 [Supercluster – Editorial](https://supercluster.com/editorial/rocket-labs-daring-mission-to-venus-will-search-for-signs-of-life) ![[Pasted image 20250417193308.png]]