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NASA has confirmed that two of its missions to Venus are now scheduled for launch in the early 2030s, marking a significant shift after years of delays. The first mission, known as DAVINCI, is set to launch in December 2030, one year earlier than previously planned. Jim Garvin, principal investigator for DAVINCI at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, stated that the new trajectory requires relatively little energy, allowing the probe to enter Venus’s atmosphere on October 3, 2032. A second mission, VERITAS, will follow with a launch in November 2032. Dan Nunes, deputy project scientist for VERITAS at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, noted that the team is currently staffing up and accelerating development.

The European Space Agency is also building an orbiter named Envision for a 2032 launch to Venus. While NASA previously planned to provide a radar instrument for this mission, officials confirmed last week that NASA pulled out of the partnership due to budget limitations. Nick Lang, a program scientist in NASA’s planetary science division, described the decision as difficult but necessary given financial pressures from other projects like Mars Sample Return and Psyche. Despite these challenges, Congress restored most funding for fiscal year 2026, which helped free up resources for Venus exploration.

Scientists at the Venus Exploration Analysis Group met last week to discuss these updates, noting that while budget cuts had imperiled earlier plans, the community remains optimistic. The upcoming missions aim to return direct images of Venus’s surface since 1982 and map the planet with higher resolution than NASA’s Magellan mission from the late 1980s. DAVINCI will carry a parachute-assisted descent probe to study the atmosphere, while VERITAS will use advanced radar to map volcanic regions.