Venus Facilities at the DLR Planetary Spectroscopy Laboratory (PSL) in Support of the NASA VERITAS, ESA EnVision and NASA DAVINCI Missions

Abstract

All three recently selected Venus missions include instruments focused on the 1 μm region in their payloads [1]. The NASA VERITAS and ESA EnVision missions use the Venus Emissivity Mapper (VEM) as a multi-spectral imaging system [2, 3]. Building upon the successes of the Visible and Infrared Thermal Imaging Spectrometer (VIRTIS) on Venus Express, VEM is specifically designed for global mapping of the surface in all available spectral windows. On EnVision, VEM is part of the VenSpec suite as VenSpec-M, joined by a high-resolution IR spectrometer (VenSpec-H) and an UV spectrometer (VenSpec-U). Data from the VenSpec suite will provide unique insights into the coupled surface-atmosphere system [3]. The DAVINCI mission has a descent imager that will also obtain images of the surface around 1 μm.