RocketLab aims to beat NASA in search for life in Venus

Peter Beck, the CEO of Rocket Lab, has set the deadline of launching a low-cost probe to Venus in 2023. Beck’s company has put satellites into the orbit over the last decade but is currently planning to take a gigantic step into interplanetary travel. Beck’s mission received a shot of adrenaline with the surprise discovery of a gas linked to living organisms in Venus’s corrosive, sulfuric atmosphere.

Beck stated, “What we’re looking for on Mars is signs of previous life,” and added, “Whereas Venus, it’s signs of potential life now.”

Venus’s inhospitable terrain had caused it to be largely neglected by major space agencies since the 1980s.

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While dozens of space missions have been launched for Mars, only one had been launched to Venus. NASA launched its Venus orbiter, Magellan, in 1990, and is now considering to return to Venus by 2026.

However, the discovery of gas called phosphine in the atmosphere of Venus by Earth-based radio telescopes have sparked a wave of enthusiasm among scientists.

While the presence of Phosphine isn’t definitive proof of the existence of life but its presence is linked to living organisms.

The discovery led NASA to shift gear and they have recently decided to prioritize Venus.

Beck, along with a PhD student has calculated that a small aircraft called ‘Photon’ developed by Rocket Lab could be tailor-made for an interplanetary voyage to Venus.

Beck told AFP that he had also developed a budget solution to the problem and stated, “I would expect a mission to Venus to be sort of $30 million.”

He added that the opportunity was immense and said, “When you can measure interplanetary missions in tens of millions of dollars instead of billions, and months instead of decades, the opportunity for discovery is just incredible.”

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The company Venus probe will be very small said the company. It will weigh around 37 kilograms and will be just a foot in diameter. The trip from the earth to Venus would take 160 days, and Photon would launch its probe into the Venus cloud. 

As per calculations, the probe will a maximum of 5 minutes to analyse the atmosphere before its disintegrates into the planets fiery surface.

The company has already recruited MIT astronomer and planetary scientist Sara Seagar to help with the process.