New Delhi: While calling for technical papers for the All India Technical Conference 2025: ‘Beyond Aryabhata to Infinite Space’, director of the UR Rao Satellite Centre in Bengaluru, M Shankaran revealed some new renders of the Venus Orbiter Mission (VOM), depicting an atmospheric probe on top. In September last year, the Union Cabinet formally approved the VOM mission, also called Shukrayaan with a budget of Rs 1,236 crore for realising the spacecraft and the ground systems. The spacecraft will be assembled at the UR Rao Satellite centre with payloads from across the country being integrated. Ashwini Vaishnav had indicated that the mission would be carrying an atmospheric probe.

Such a probe would have to descend through the atmosphere of Venus, beaming back observations to the orbiter that drops it. No spacecraft can expect to survive very long on the surface of Venus, which has hellish, high-pressure conditions where it rains acid. ISRO has revealed 19 payloads that it has planned for VOM, but it is unclear if any of these are meant for the atmospheric probe. There was uncertainty on the inclusion of the probe in the mission. On the sidelines of the 30th Convocation Ceremony of BIT Mesra, ISRO Chairman V Narayanan had indicated that an atmospheric probe was still an option.

Venus Atmospheric Probe now confirmed

It looks like ISRO is planning to dispatch an atmospheric probe to Venus after all, going by the new renders of the VOM spacecraft. The atmospheric probe will be loaded with sensors, capturing as much information as possible during its descent through the atmosphere, and can possibly make it to the surface of Venus as well. ISRO hopes to better understand the complex chemistry of the Venusian atmosphere with the Shukrayaan mission, and the observations by the atmospheric descent probe is expected to provide additional contextual information to better interpret the observations by the sophisticated suite of payloads on the orbiter.