VERITAS (Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy) is a mission from NASA-JPL to understand the evolution of Venus and what makes it so different from the Earth. The combination of radar imagery and near-in frared spectroscopy, and gravity field measurements will provide know ledge of Venus‘ tectonic and impact history, gravity, geochemistry, the mechanisms of volcanic resurfacing.
The mission was approved on June, 2nd 2021 and the launch is planned for 2028 with a mission duration of 3 years. The VISAR (Venus Interferometric SAR) is designed to map the surface of the planet with high resolution and also to enable the generation of deformation maps. The IMF-SAR department will partake to the development of the interfero metric ground processor to generate these products from interferograms produced on-board.
VERITAS is the 3rd cooperation with NASA-JPL after the successful SIR-C/X-SAR & SRTM missions. The novelty for the institute is that we will generate high resolution topographic and deformation maps of Venus (instead of the Earth). The challenge lies in the very dense atmosphere of the planet.