NASA will send two missions to Venus for the first time in over 30 years

The agency has picked two new robotic missions to explore the hot hell-world of Venus, Earth’s neighbor and the second planet from the Sun, administrator Bill Nelson announced on Wednesday. The two missions, DAVINCI+ and VERITAS, were among four competing proposals under the latest round of NASA’s Discovery Program, which manages smaller planetary exploration missions with a slim budget of roughly $500 million each.

“These two sister missions both aim to understand how Venus became an inferno-like world capable of melting lead at the surface,” Nelson said during his first “State of NASA” address at the agency’s headquarters in Washington, DC on Wednesday. “They will offer the entire science community a chance to investigate a planet we...

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