Russian scientists are working on creating the Viral instrument to study the gas composition of Venus's atmosphere. The instrument will be installed on the Indian automatic station Venus Orbiter Mission ("Shukrayaan"), which is scheduled to be launched by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in 2028. This was announced by the head of the Department of Planetary Physics at the Space Research Institute (IKI) of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Oleg Korablev.
We have one year left to make Viral, because colleagues from ISRO want to receive a flight model already in March 2027, and it still needs to be tested. We have good groundwork, from ExoMars and others, and I rate our chances of meeting this deadline quite highly.
The Viral instrument will measure the gas composition and structure of the upper layers of the Venusian atmosphere, located above the clouds. The Venus Orbiter Mission will be the first Indian spacecraft to go to Venus. Its tasks include radar research of the planet's surface, studying the composition of the atmosphere, and analyzing potential volcanic or seismic activity.
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