Venus

Exploration

More than 40 spacecraft have launched for Venus. One spacecraft – Japan's Akatsuki – is currently in orbit. Three new Venus missions will launch in the next decade.

NASA's Mariner 2 was the first spacecraft to visit any planet beyond Earth when it flew past Venus on Dec. 14, 1962. Data gathered in a 42-minute scan forever changed how we see Earth's closest neighbor. It revealed Venus as a runaway global hothouse. Understanding what went wrong with Venus' climate could help protect Earth.

"What's so fascinating is that both Earth and Venus are about the same size," said Lori Glaze, NASA's Director of Planetary Science. She is a longtime Venus expert. "Venus is a little smaller, but not much. They have similar gravity. They formed in the same part of the solar system. They probably formed at about the same time. And you would think that they would have evolved very similarly. But they didn't. Earth and Venus went very different directions."

Exploring the surface of Venus is difficult because of the intense heat and crushing air pressure. The longest any spacecraft has survived on the surface is a little over two hours – a record set by the Soviet Union's Venera 13 probe in 1981.

NASA's DAVINCI mission is next up with a planned probe landing in 2031. The probe will focus on the atmospheric descent, but there is a chance it will send surface data for a few minutes.
NASA's VERITAS and ESA's EnVision will follow with orbital observations in the 2030s.

Missions

Missions to Venus

Primary Source: Siddiqi, Asif A. Beyond Earth: A Chronicle of Deep Space Exploration, 1958-2016. NASA History Program Office, 2018.

Launch Date	Spacecraft	Nation	Type	Outcome
Feb 4, 1961	1VA/1	USSR	Impact	Failure
Feb 12, 1961	1VA/2	USSR	Impact	Failure
Jul 22, 1962	Mariner 1	USA	Impact	Failure
Aug 27, 1962	Mariner 2	USA	Flyby	Success-First
Sep 1, 1962	2MV-1/4	USSR	Impact	Failure
Sep 12, 1962	2MV-2/1	USSR	Impact	Failure
Feb 19, 1964	3MV-1A	USSR	Flyby	Failure
Mar 27, 1964	Kosmos 27	USSR	Impact	Failure
Apr 2, 1964	Zond 1	USSR	Flyby	Failure
Nov 12, 1965	Venera 2	USSR	Flyby	Success
Nov 16, 1965	Venera 3	USSR	Impact	Success-First
Nov 23, 1965	Kosmos 96	USSR	Impact	Success
Jun 12, 1965	Venera 4	USSR	Atmospheric Probe	Success-First
Jun 14, 1965	Mariner 5	USA	Flyby	Success
Jun 14, 1967	Kosmos 167	USSR	Impact	Failure
Jan 5, 1969	Venera 5	USSR	Atmospheric Probe	Success
Jan 10, 1969	Venera 6	USSR	Atmospheric Probe	Success
Aug 17,1970	Venera 7	USSR	Lander	Success-First
Aug 22, 1970	Kosmos 359	USSR	Lander	Failure
Mar 27, 1972	Venera 8	USSR	Lander	Success
Mar 31, 1972	Kosmos 482	USSR	Lander	Failure
Nov 3, 1973	Mariner 10	USA	Flyby	Success
Jun 8, 1975	Venera 9	USSR	Orbiter/Lander	Success-First
Jun 14, 1975	Venera 10	USSR	Orbiter/Lander	Success-First
May 20, 1978	Pioneer Venus 1	USA	Orbiter	Success
Aug 8, 1978	Pioneer Venus 2	USA	Impact	Success
Sep 9, 1978	Veneral 11	USSR	Lander	Success
Sep 14, 1978	Venera 12	USSR	Lander	Success
Oct 30, 1981	Venera 13	USSR	Lander	Success
Nov 4, 1983	Venera 14	USSR	Lander	Success
Jun 2, 1983	Venera 15	USSR	Orbiter	Success
Jun 7, 1983	Venera 16	USSR	Orbiter	Success
Dec 14, 1984	Vega 1	USSR	Lander	Success
Dec 21, 1983	Vega 2	USSR	Lander	Success
May 4, 1989	Magellan	USA	Orbiter	Success-First
Oct 18, 1989	Galileo	USA	Flyby	Success
Oct 15, 1997	Cassini	USA	Flyby (multiple)	Success
Nov 9, 2005	Venus Express	ESA	Orbiter	Success
May 20, 2010	Akatsuki	Japan	Orbiter	Success
May 20, 2010	Shin'en	Japan	Encounter	Partial Success
May 20, 2010	IKAROS	Japan	Flyby	Success
Aug 12, 2018	Parker Solar Probe	USA	Flyby (multiple)	Success
Oct 20, 2018	BepiColombo	ESA/JAXA	Flyby (multiple)	Success

Future Missions

Future Missions

Proposed Launch	Spacecraft	Nation	Type	Status
~2029	DAVINCI	USA	Orbiter/Atmospheric Probe	In Development
~2030	EnVision	ESA	Orbiter	In Development
~2031	VERITAS	USA	Orbiter	In Devlopment