Abstract Despite great interest by the planetary science community in the robotic exploration of Venus, solutions for operating in this extreme environment present significant challenges to mission architects. A particular challenge in designing any in situ Venus mission of reasonable duration is the selection of a suitable power source. State-of-the-art space power technologies comprising solar arrays, batteries and radioisotope thermoelectric generators are not capable of operating on the surface of Venus, limited by the high temperatures, high pressures and corrosive environment. Despite its proximity to the Sun, the solar resource on the surface is limited by the dense cloud layers. One potential approach for circumventing this limitation includes collecting the abundant visible solar energy above the Venus atmosphere, and wirelessly transferring this power to the surface at a wavelength that can more effectively penetrate the dense cloud layer. The feasibility of such an approach and other related mission concepts are discussed herein from a perspective of atmospheric absorption and scattering of the beamed energy.
Highlights A lack of suitable power source options limits the feasibility of long duration Venus surface missions. Collection of the significant solar resource at the top of the Venus atmosphere using solar arrays coupled with wireless transfer of this harvested energy to the surface is not feasible, due to significant attenuation of electromagnetic energy at both microwave and optical/infrared wavelengths. Optical windows do exist in portions of the Venus atmosphere, whereby a fraction of harvested energy could be transmitted via a laser power source to a laser power converter on the surface. To implement such an optical power beaming scheme would require the use of an atmospheric platform, such as a variable altitude balloon, which could harvest the solar energy at a height of approximately 47 km and then transmit this to the surface at a wavelength aligned with these optical windows.
Feasibility of power beaming through the Venus atmosphere
Acta Astronautica ; 211 ; 376-381
2023-06-25
6 pages
Aufsatz (Zeitschrift)
Elektronische Ressource
Englisch
Power Beaming for Long Life Venus Surface Missions
NTRS | 2019
|Feasibility Study for Venus Atmosphere Mission
British Library Conference Proceedings | 2002
|Feasibility study for Venus atmosphere mission
Online Contents | 2002
|