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Upcoming Venus exploration by AKATSUKI/Venus Climate Orbiter

Upcoming Venus exploration by AKATSUKI/Venus Climate Orbiter. M. Nakamura, T. Imamura, T. Satoh, and VCO Team Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. Flight model before launch. Vibration test. Thermal vacuum test. Akatsuki launch: May 21, 2010. First light. UVI 365nm. LIR 10μm. IR1 0.9μm.

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Upcoming Venus exploration by AKATSUKI/Venus Climate Orbiter

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  1. Upcoming Venus exploration by AKATSUKI/Venus Climate Orbiter M. Nakamura, T. Imamura, T. Satoh, and VCO Team Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency

  2. Flight model before launch

  3. Vibration test Thermal vacuum test

  4. Akatsuki launch: May 21, 2010

  5. First light UVI 365nm LIR 10μm IR1 0.9μm

  6. Venus Climate Orbiter/Akatsuki(PLANET-C project) • First Japanese Venus mission • Science target : • Mechanism of super-rotation • Structure of meridional circulation • Meso-scale processes • Formation of H2SO4 clouds • Lightning • Active volcanism, inhomogeneity of surface material • Zodiacal light (during cruise) • Launch : May 21, 2010  Arrival: December 7, 2010 • Mission life :More than 2 Earth years

  7. Comparative planetary meteorology

  8. Cloud processes • Dynamics of cloud formation, role of meridional circulation in transporting cloud-related species • Origin of UV markings • Whether lightening occurs or not Schubert (1983)

  9. Observation from an orbiter Lightning and airglow camera Longwave IR camera (cloud temperature) • 4 cameras sounding different altitudes, a high-speed lightning detector, and an ultra-stable oscillator for radio science • Constructing 3-D model of atmospheric dynamics Ultraviolet imager (cloud top) 1-mm camera (surface) 2-mm camera (lower atmosphere) Radio science (vertical structure)

  10. LIR LAC UVI IR1 IR2

  11. Onboard instruments

  12. Resolution: 10-20 km Observations to be conducted during one orbital revolution Successive Global images of atmosphere and ground surface (~24 hours) Limb images (~0.5 hour) Orbital period: 30 hours Close-up images/ Lightning/Airglow (~3 hours x 2) Temperature / H2SO4 vapor / Ionosphere by radio occultation

  13. Wavelengths for cloud-tracking 365nm, cloud top (65km), dayside 10mm, cloud top (65km), dayside & nightside 2.02mm, cloud top(65m), dayside 365 nm image taken by PVO/OCPP 8.6 um image taken by Subaru telescope, high-pass filtered Cloud altimetry by VenusExpress/VIRTIS 0.9mm, lower cloud (50km), dayside 2.3mm, lower cloud (50km), nightside * Cloud top and bottom will be covered on both dayside and nightside. 0.98 um image taken by Galileo/SSI 2.3 um image taken by Galileo/NIMS

  14. Accuracy of wind velocity measurement • Cloud position accuracy is assumed to be 1 pixel. • Mean meridional circulation is obtained by averaging large number of vectors and will be determined with much higher accuracy than above estimates.

  15. Latitude and local solar time of radio occultation • 360-deg local time coverage in the tropics Thermal tides including sub-cloud region • Intensive observation in the sub-solar region  Origin of ‘cells’ • Locations probed by radio occultation will be imaged by cameras a short time before or after the occultation.

  16. 3-D sounding

  17. Data processing pipeline Level 0 : Uncompressed images • Level 2 and Level 3 data will be released to the public with PDS-like label files. Level 1 : Calibrated images with FITS header Level 2 : Calibrated images with FITS header, including geometry information Level 3 : Wind vectors and other higher-level products on longitude-latitude grids in NetCDF format

  18. Complementary missions Coordinated observations are being planned.

  19. Summary • VCO/Akatsuki will address the unique dynamical state of the Venus atmosphere with systematic sampling of meteorological variables from equatorial orbit. • Three-dimensional structure of the atmosphere and its temporal variation will be observed by using 4 cameras, a high-speed lightning detector and radio occultation. • Data processing pipeline is under development. Wind vectors as well as image data and radio occultation data will be released to the public. See you soon at Venus !

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