Abstract
The landers of the Soviet Venera series—from Venera-9 to Venera-14—designed at the Lavochkin Association are a man-made monument to spectacular achievements of Soviet space research. For more than 40 years, they have remained the uneclipsed Soviet results in space studies of the Solar System. Within the last almost half a century, the experiments carried out by the Venera-9 to Venera-14 probes for studying the surface of the planet have not been repeated by any space agency in the world, mainly due to quite substantial technical problems. Since that time, no Russian missions with landers have been sent to Venus either. On Venus, there is an anoxic carbon dioxide atmosphere, where the pressure is 9.2 MPa and the temperature is 735 K near the surface. A long-lived lander should experience these conditions for an appreciable length of time. What technical solutions could provide a longer operation time for a new probe investigating the surface of Venus, if its thermal scheme is constructed similar to that of the Venera series? Onboard new landers, there should be a sealed module, where the physical conditions required for operating scientific instruments are maintained for a long period. At the same time, new high-temperature electronic equipment that remains functional under the above-mentioned conditions have appeared. In this paper, we consider and discuss different variants of the system for a long-lived sealed lander, in particular, the absorption of the penetrating heat due to water evaporation and the thermal protection construction for the instruments with intermediate characteristics.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abidin, N.R.Z., Yew, C.K. and Lockman, Z., Material selection for high temperature electronic devices and its potential application. http://www.myiem.org.my/content. iem_bulletin_2009-184.aspx.
Avtomaticheskie kosmicheskie apparaty dlya fundamental’nykh i prikladnh nauchykh isledovani (Automatic Spacecrafts for Fundamental and Applied Scientific Studies), Polishchuk, G.M. and Pichkhadze, K.M., Eds., Moscow: MAI-Print, 2010.
Ekonomov, A.P. and Zasova, L.V., Long-lived space station on the surface of Venus as part of the mission “Venus-D”. Space instrumentation, Trudy vyezdnogo seminara Instituta Kosmicheskikh Issledovanii, Tarusa, 2016 g. (Proc. Offsite Seminar of the Institute of Space Researches, Tarusa, 2016), Nazirov, R.R., Ed., Moscow: Inst. Kosm. Issled., Ross. Akad. Nauk, 2006, pp. 264–273.
Ksanfomality, L.V., Planeta Venera (The Venus Planet), Moscow: Nauka, 1985.
Ksanfomality, L.V., Possible detection of life on the Venus, Dokl. Akad. Nauk, 2012, vol. 446, no. 1, pp. 42–47.
Marov, M.Ya., Kosmos. Ot Solnechnoi sistemy vglub’ Vselennoi (Space: From Solar System Deep into the Universe), Moscow: Fizmatlit, 2016.
Materialy Chetvertogo mezhdunarodnogo simpoziuma po issledovaniyu Solnechnoi sistemy 4M-S3 posvyashchennoi 80-letiyu akademika M.Ya. Marova “Issledovaniya Solnechnoi sistemy. Kosmicheskie vekhi” (Proc. Forth Int. Symp. on the Study of Solar System 4M-S3 Dedicated to 80 Anniversary of Academician M.Ya. Marov “Solar System Study: Some Milestones”), Zakharov, A.V., Ed., Moscow: Inst. Kosm. Issled., Ross. Akad. Nauk, 2015.
Neudeck, P.G., Meredith, R.D., Chen, L., Spry, D.J., and Nakley, L.M., Prolonged silicon carbide integrated circuit operation in Venus surface atmospheric conditions, AIP Adv., 2016, vol. 6, p. 125119. http://dx.doi.org/. doi 10.1063/1.4973429
Selivanov, A.S., Gektin, Yu.M., Gerasimov, M.A., Panfilov, A.S., and Naraeva, M.K., The following television survey of the Venus surface from descent spacecrafts, Kosm. Issled., 1983, vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 176–182.
Wildt, R., Note on the surface temperature on Venus, Astrophys. J., 1940, vol. 91, pp. 266–268.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Original Russian Text © A.P. Ekonomov, L.V. Ksanfomality, 2018, published in Astronomicheskii Vestnik, 2018, Vol. 52, No. 1, pp. 43–50.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ekonomov, A.P., Ksanfomality, L.V. On the Thermal Protection Systems of Landers for Venus Exploration. Sol Syst Res 52, 37–43 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1134/S0038094617060016
Received:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1134/S0038094617060016