After the success of the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) and launching five British satellites into space, India is ready to challenge the borders of outer space exploration yet again with a mission to Venus being considered.
"Besides the second Mars mission, we are looking at Venus and even an asteroid for exploration. A project has to be formulated for this before we chart out a proper roadmap for the explorations. Venus is our neighbor and has many scientific challenges and aspects that need to be studied. Exploring an asteroid is also challenging task," Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman Kiran Kumar said, according to Spaceflight Insider.
Venus, named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty, is a terrestrial planet and is sometimes called Earth's "sister planet" because of their similar size, mass, proximity to the sun and bulk composition. However, it is radically different from earth in other aspects. Venus is also the brightest natural object in the night sky after the moon.
There are indications that the United States will be working with India in this "deep space exploration." Speaking to students of Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai Richard Verma, U.S. ambassador to India, sprung a surprise by saying, "We look forward to path-breaking work between NASA and ISRO on deep space exploration to Mars and beyond," reports Zee News.
To date, only Russia, the U.S. and the European Space Agency (ESA) have successfully sent missions to Venus. Japan will try to insert its Akatsuki probe into the Venetian orbit in December 2015 after its first attempt in 2010 failed.
"Right now discussions are going on for one more mission to Mars or Venus or we should look at asteroids. There is a science team which is going through this discussion," Kumar said. ISRO's next Mars mission, called Mangalyaan 2, may take place between 2018 and 2020. With a greater scientific payload to Mars, the mission will likely consist of a lander and a Mars rover.
