Delays to the first of three missions making the long awaited return to the scorching planet Venus, which scientists say has not had enough robotic visitors in the past decades, might affect the two other missions set to explore our planetary neighbor.
Late last year, NASA pushed the VERITAS (or Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography and Spectroscopy) mission, originally scheduled to fly in 2027 to inaugurate the "Decade of Venus," to no earlier than 2031. However, the White House's 2024 budget proposal for NASA, announced in March 2023, holds the mission funding for VERITAS at a mere $1.5 million per year for the near future, placing the mission in a "deep freeze." Because of NASA's decision to use a bulk of the funding that supported the project's engineering operations for other missions facing cost overruns, much of the work on the VERITAS mission is now at a standstill. Its indefinite delay has disbanded the mission's engineering wing, and scientists are now worrying about its impact on two other related missions to Venus.
