The European Space Agency has announced huge plans for the next three decades
The last few years have really looked exciting when it comes to space exploration. Only in 2021 did the United States and China land their spacecraft on Mars, where they are actively conducting missions.
Even the United Arab Emirates became the first Arab state to send a mission to the Red Planet and even make large-scale plans to build a Martian city.
As for the moon, NASA plans to send a man there again soon, while Russia and China want to build a whole habitable base together.
For their part, private companies are also showing increasing interest in space and are in themselves a competition reminiscent of that between the Soviet Union and the United States during the Cold War. Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic are building their own spaceships, and Bezos himself plans to fly among the stars next month.
Two weeks after Bezos leaves Amazon, he will fly aboard his own rocket.
And while America and Asia seem to be making more and more progress in space exploration, Europe somehow seems to be lagging behind. The latest large-scale missions of the European Space Agency (ESA) are the Venus Express, which ended in 2014, and the Mars Express, which is expected to be completed by the end of next year.
However, this will soon change, as ESA recently announced large-scale plans for the next three decades until 2050.
It is a multi-component Voyage 2050 strategy, “and its first missions are expected to launch at the beginning of the next decade. Most of them will be of the so-called L-Class, which means that they are large-scale and high-priority.”
“The plan is the result of the enormous efforts of the scientific community and the teams of our committee,” Fabio Favata, head of ESA’s Strategy, Planning and Coordination Office, said in an official statement. “Voyage 2050 has launched and will maintain Europe’s place in the forefront of space science for decades to come.”
The last missions of the current program until 2025 “Cosmic Vision” are currently in a different stage of development. The Cosmic Orbiter solar satellite has already been sent into space, while other special ARIEL, Euclid and Plato telescopes will be launched by the end of the decade.
Voyage 2050’s main focus will be on three areas: studying the giant moons in the solar system, observing exoplanets near our galaxy, and studying the evolution of the first structures in the early universe.
This will include studying the moons of Jupiter, Neptune and Saturn. Some of them are thought to have subterranean oceans, and hence the possibility of life.
ESA plans to return to Venus and launch the EnVision mission, which is worth 610 million euros, in 2031.
Compared to Mars, Venus is much less frequently visited, and so far only European, Russian, Japanese and American missions have reached it. The planet will increasingly attract our attention due to the observed climate change of Earth-like exoplanets.
Scientists will try to find the answer to the question why the atmosphere of Venus is so poisonous at the moment, provided that it once had quite similar characteristics to those of our planet. Once upon a time there was even water, but over time it disappears, carbon dioxide slowly begins to suffocate the atmosphere, and the greenhouse effect of the planet turns it into a real oven.
So far, more than 20 missions have been sent there, and thanks to them we know that the air of Venus is not exactly air. It consists of 97% carbon dioxide, which is so dense that it is about 100 times thicker than the Earth’s atmosphere. It also has a temperature of 462 degrees Celsius.
All this makes sending devices there a real challenge, because the atmosphere itself literally eats away at any material known to man.
Recently, the Venus Express finds evidence that Venus once had oceans and volcanoes. EnVision’s job will be to confirm this data and check for active volcanoes. as the available technology will allow a significantly deeper look at the composition of the local atmosphere and will also make it possible to look for possible traces of the presence of hot lava.
The latter can be done using a special radar provided by NASA. In fact, EnVision will follow two US missions that will depart for Venus a little earlier. VERITAS will make a detailed topography, while DAVINCI + will go deep into the planetary atmosphere and reach the surface itself.
Together, the three missions will complement each other and provide many answers for scientists about the different destinies of Venus and Earth.
And there will also be an opportunity to talk again about the European Space Agency as a leading factor in space research.
