NASA’s DAVINCI Beats Heat in Preparation for Blistering Venus Descent

An engineering model of NASA's DAVINCI (Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging) descent probe passed a key test that ran from Aug. 28 to Sept. 10, showing it can survive the extreme temperatures of Venus.

The DAVINCI team took the engineering model to a furnace at Rex Heat Treat in Bedford, Pennsylvania, as it's one of few facilities capable of heating up to Venus-like temperatures as rapidly as the probe would experience. They slid the yoga ball-sized vessel into a ceramic-lined chamber with heat-scorched walls and ratcheted up the temperature to 869 degrees F, or 465 degrees C, over the course of about an hour - the same pace the probe will heat up during its descent to the surface of Venus.

They repeated the thermal cycling process five more times. The engineering model made it through every cycle unscathed, proving that the probe can withstand extreme temperatures and protect its delicate scientific instruments while traveling through Venus' atmosphere. During the testing, hardware simulating the instruments was closely monitored via more than 100 thermal sensors.

"The experiment was a rousing success, with six runs to Venus' surface temperature on our descent timeline of 55-60 minutes with full internal instrumentation," said Jim Garvin, the principal investigator for DAVINCI at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "There hasn't been such a complete assessment of spacecraft-scale hardware at Venus temperatures in the U.S. since the mid-1970s."

The DAVINCI spacecraft is being developed to travel to Venus to investigate numerous unsolved puzzles, including whether the planet once had oceans and was habitable, like Earth. To explore these mysteries, the spacecraft will release a probe that will withstand hellish temperatures for nearly an hour as it descends through Venus' toxic atmosphere, collecting data along the way.

"It's a huge engineering challenge given how harsh the Venus environment is," said Kristen Brown, the DAVINCI probe manager at NASA Goddard. "We had to create a system that can protect the instruments from the planet's overwhelming heat while strategically letting in its high-temperature gases to study through special inlet ports."

Encased in a corrosion resistant, strong-yet-lightweight titanium shell, the DAVINCI probe will be equipped with a suite of instruments to sample the composition of the gases of the Venusian atmosphere to determine what molecules they're made of and learn about the atmosphere's structure. It will also contain cameras that will snap the highest-resolution images of Venus' surface ever, which scientists will use to make a 3D map, and a radio system to send data back to the spacecraft flying 5,600 miles (9,000 kilometers) overhead.

This heat testing follows on the heels of a campaign earlier this summer to demonstrate the probe's imaging system. The mission is currently working toward gaining approval to move into the final design and fabrication phase. "The DAVINCI team has now met both of the major mission milestones this year on an accelerated timeline," Garvin said. Showing that the DAVINCI probe can beat the Venusian heat, brings scientists one step closer to learning why Earth's "twin" turned out so different from our home.