Free Astronomy Magazine July-August 2021

4 ASTRO PUBLISHING by Damian G. Allis NASA Solar System Ambassador T he two most recent NASA Dis- covery Program missions are set to greatly improve our un- derstanding of our most luminous and mysterious sister planet. On June 2 nd , NASA Administrator Bill Nelson announced that both DAVINCI+ and VERITAS had been selected – a first time for two missions to the same lo- cation in the history of the program. The MESSENGER spacecraft, the only other Discovery Program mission to study the planet Venus, only per- formed two flybys, of which only the T he surface of Venus, as seen without its thick atmosphere. [Withan Tor/Shutterstock.com] second, on June 5, 2007, was used to col- lect spectroscopic data and images before contin- uing to the planet Mercury, its primary target. In the grand architecture of NASA funding, the Discovery Pro- gram focuses on missions requiring smaller budgets than those of New DAVINCI+ and VERITAS to explore Venus JULY-AUGUST 2021