Oklahoma State University Students Work With NASA Jet Propulsion Lab On Venus Exploration Project

Press release from Oklahoma State University:

August 2, 2021

For centuries, astronomers and scientists have wondered about the conditions on Venus.
Students from Oklahoma State University are working with NASA on ways to finally answer
some of the burning questions surrounding Earth’s sister planet.

One of the brightest objects in the night sky, Venus is the closest planet in size
to Earth, with a diameter about 400 miles smaller than our world. With a thick cloud
cover and extremely dense atmosphere, the surface of Venus has always been a mystery.

A breakthrough was made in the 1980s and early 1990s when the U.S. spacecraft Magellan
was able to map the surface. Long thought to be home to immense vegetation because
of its atmosphere, the images showed a much different picture — an almost barren land
with volcanoes and surface temperatures exceeding 800 degrees Fahrenheit.

“Early astronomers looking at Venus saw this hazy cloud over it and thought, ‘Ahh,
what we are going to see is tons of jungles because it is closer to the sun,’” said
Dr. Jamey Jacob, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and director of
the Unmanned Systems Research Institute. “They were right in concluding that Venus
was hot but were unaware of just how hot — so hot that it melts lead on the surface.”

Because most surface technology can’t withstand the heat of Venus, space exploration
looked toward another target: Mars. Most planetary exploration missions in the last
three decades have focused on the “red planet,” Earth’s other neighbor.

Under Mars’ cold climate and desert-like atmosphere, rovers have been able to collect
immense data from the surface. However, with some advances in technology and outside-the-box
thinking, studying Venus has become more viable.

Danny Bowman, a geophysicist for Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, designed
a balloon a few years ago made out of a plastic material similar to the material used
for trash bags. These solar-powered balloons attached to a string that held a seismometer
encased in a plastic foam box.

Its purpose was to detect earthquakes through sounds below the level of human hearing,
or infrasound. After successful tests in California, Sandia and NASA’s Jet Propulsion
Laboratory began looking for places that had multiple earthquakes a day of a smaller
scale and landed on Oklahoma as the perfect testing ground.

“The earthquake, when it shakes the ground, it acts like a giant speaker. It produces
that low-frequency sound,” said Dr. Brain Elbing, an associate professor of mechanical
and aerospace engineering at OSU. “The goal here is that we are going to fly a bunch
of balloons with these sensors on them. We are trying to get natural earthquakes so
it is going to be a long campaign where we are flying and waiting for earthquakes.
If we can detect a weak earthquake here, it will be easy on Venus. Looking at the
propagated sound that gets in the atmosphere, we can get a good look at the structure
on Venus.”

Jacob and Elbing have been working with students on testing smaller six-meter balloons
with success so when Sandia and NASA JPL visited OSU in late July, it was time to
start testing the bigger seven-meter balloons, similar to the ones that Bowman had
been using in California.

On the morning of July 20, at the OSU Unmanned Aircraft Flight Station near Glencoe,
Oklahoma, the OSU and NASA researchers took the first steps toward a better understanding
of Venus.

NASA JPL had three visitors on hand for the launch, including Siddharth Krishnamoorthy,
Leo Martire and Michael Pauken, as well as Fransiska Dannemann Dugick from Sandia.
OSU is the only university participating in this project.

After some trial and error and overcoming challenges from Oklahoma winds, the balloon
successfully launched. Elbing said it would travel on the wind and land around dusk,
most likely in New Mexico or Texas.

“The idea is they are lightweight and balance themselves, so they basically climb
to 20 kilometers [over 65,000 feet] in the air and just stay up there all day long
until sunset at that elevation,” Elbing said.

The team launched a few more balloons while the visitors from NASA and Sandia were
on campus. OSU students described it as a once-in-a-lifetime experience to work alongside
those top-tier aerospace engineering professionals.

“It is nice to see the information we are learning applied to a real-life situation,”
said Taylor Swaim, an OSU engineering graduate student from Tulsa. “It is also nice
working alongside professionals. They are where we are trying to go as grad students
or undergrad students and are definitely big role models to us.”

Embarking on what will most likely be a decade-long project is exciting, Jacob said.
Researchers hope the balloons will prove successful in detecting the earthquakes,
and, eventually, helping to map the surface of Venus. Since the planet can’t be mapped
from the ground, the sky is the best option. And Venus’ Earth-like upper atmosphere
is playing to researchers’ advantage.

“So that makes it a much easier atmosphere to work in,” Jacob said. “Rather than be
in the really hellish atmosphere that you have down on the surface at 600 degrees
Celsius and 90 atmospheres’ worth of pressure, you are going to be relatively balmy,
and that is a great environment for operating science payloads and experiments.”

Exploration of Venus is quickly becoming a top priority for NASA. Researchers hope
to learn not just about the possibility of sustaining life on Venus, but also to study
the effects of climate change on a planet similar to Earth.

“Venus is exhibiting a runaway greenhouse gas scenario where you have a lot of C02
in the atmosphere and cloud cover,” Jacob said. “Venus is a lot hotter in the atmosphere
than it should be, just based on the amount of solar radiation that you have coming
in. Understanding that helps us understand our own planet a little better and the
implications of increasing greenhouse gases on Earth and how that may affect the climate
here.”

The next two missions to Venus are VERITAS and DAVINCI+, both planned for between
2028 and 2030. The balloons probably won’t be ready to go on those missions, but with
more testing at OSU, NASA JPL might be able to help uncover the mysteries of Venus
sooner than previously thought possible.

“The JPL science team was extremely impressed with the students we had here and the
job they did,” Jacob said. “They are blown away by their professionalism and capabilities.
The most premier space science organization in the world coming out and visiting your
facilities and leaving happy with what they see is great.”

This press release was produced by Oklahoma State University. The views expressed here are the author’s own.