Envision Legacy and complementarity

The mission builds on the success of missions including

• NASA Mariner 2 mission (1962)
• The Soviet Union Venera Programme (1961-1984);
• NASA’s Pioneer Venus missions (1978-1992);
• The Soviet Union Vega Programme (1984);
• NASA’s Magellan Orbiter (1989-1994);
• ESA’s Venus Express (2005-2014) (see also ESA Cosmos Venus Express pages and Venus Express images);
• JAXA’s Venus Climate Orbiter Akatsuki mission (2015 - 2025).

For summaries of these missions and their scientific achievements, see ‘Past missions to Venus’.

Future Venus missions scheduled to fly in the late 2020s and early 2030s:

• Envision - Understanding why Venus is so different from Earth​​​​​​​, ESA
• VOM (Venus Orbiter Mission), ISRO
• Venus Morning Star missions, MIT and Rocketlab
• DAVINCI (Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging) mission, NASA
• VERITAS  (Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy) mission, NASA

The future missions will provide complementary and comprehensive observational datasets greatly furthering our understanding of the Venus system.

ESA's Venus Express mission, operating at Venus between 2005 and 2014. Copyright: European Space Agency.