India’s Venus Orbiter Mission (VOM), approved by the Union Cabinet with a budget of ₹1,236 crore, is officially targeted for launch on March 29, 2028. The spacecraft will be propelled by the heavy-lift LVM-3 rocket and is expected to complete its interplanetary journey to Venus in 112 days

India’s Venus Orbiter Mission (VOM), will carry 19 payloads and employ aerobraking to achieve a stable science orbit. This ambitious mission will deliver unprecedented insights into Venus’s surface, subsurface, atmosphere, and solar wind interactions, marking India’s most complex planetary exploration effort after Chandrayaan and Mangalyaan.

The Venus Orbiter Mission represents a major leap in India’s planetary science programme. It will carry 16 indigenous payloads, two collaborative instruments, and one fully international contribution, curated by an Expert Review Committee.

These payloads are grouped into three domains: surface and subsurface mapping, atmospheric and cloud dynamics, and solar wind interactions. Together, they will provide the first-ever deep subsurface and high-resolution atmospheric study of Venus.

For surface and subsurface mapping, the Venus S-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar (VSAR) will penetrate the dense sulfuric clouds to map the terrain at four times the resolution of NASA’s Magellan mission, searching for active volcanoes and lava flows.

The Venus Advanced Radar for Topside Ionosphere and Subsurface Sounding (VARTISS) will probe beneath the crust, estimating lava flow thickness and stratigraphy. The Venus Surface Emissivity and Atmospheric Mapper (VSEAM) will identify mineral hotspots and thermal anomalies, while geological mapping will reveal tectonic features and volcanic activity.

Atmospheric and cloud dynamics will be studied using the Venus Thermal Camera (VTC) and Cloud Monitoring Camera (VCMC), which will track the planet’s extreme super-rotation winds. The Venus Atmospheric Spectro-Polarimeter (VASP) and Solar Occultation Photometry (SPAV) will profile aerosols and gases, while the Lightning Instrument for Venus (LIVE) will detect electrical discharges hidden in the acidic clouds. The VIRAL spectrometer, developed collaboratively with Russia and France, will search for trace gases such as phosphine, a potential biosignature.

Solar wind and space environment interactions will be investigated by the Venusian Neutrals Analyzer (VNA), provided by Sweden, which will study neutral particles escaping the atmosphere. The VIPER plasma wave detector and Flux Gate Magnetometer (FGM) will measure magnetic boundaries and solar wind stripping. Additional instruments such as the Venus Radiation Environment Monitor (VeRad) and VISWAS particle analyser will assess radiation levels and atmospheric loss mechanisms.

To place this massive science station into its final orbit, ISRO will employ aerobraking, a technique that uses atmospheric friction instead of fuel-intensive thrusters.

After insertion into a highly elliptical orbit of 500 km × 60,000 km, the spacecraft will gradually dip into the upper atmosphere at periapsis.

Each pass will slow the craft, lowering its apoapsis until the orbit circularises at 200 km × 600 km. This process, divided into walk-in, primary, and walk-out phases, will take several months and save enormous amounts of propellant, enabling the mission to carry its full payload suite.

The mission’s science orbit will allow low-altitude radar scans, subsurface probing, and atmospheric profiling at unprecedented resolution. ISRO also plans to deploy an atmospheric probe from the orbiter, which will descend into the dense atmosphere and transmit data until it succumbs to the extreme conditions. This will provide direct measurements of Venus’s atmospheric composition and dynamics.

International collaboration is central to the mission. Russia, France, and Sweden are contributing instruments, while ISRO has convened science meets with over 200 researchers from India and abroad. Archival Venus data has been released to broaden participation, and a Principal Scientist has been appointed to lead the mission’s scientific output.

The Venus Orbiter Mission is expected to revolutionise understanding of Earth’s twin planet. It will investigate whether Venus once had conditions suitable for liquid water before becoming an extreme greenhouse world, and how solar wind interactions stripped away its atmosphere.

By combining cutting-edge payloads with innovative aerobraking, India aims to deliver a planetary science mission of global significance.

Agencies