ANN ARBOR, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – The University of Michigan is partnering with NASA to study the atmosphere of Venus.

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This won’t be the first time that technology from the college’s Space Physics Research Laboratory (SPRL) has visited space, but the new DAVINCI mission presents some challenges. Venus is the hottest planet in the solar system, and any equipment sent to the planet will have to survive temperatures of up to 900 degrees Fahrenheit. And that’s after a jarring rocket launch and a long journey through cold space.

“Venus is hard to study because you can’t put a rover on the surface because it’s not going to survive that,” said Matt Garrison, a payload systems engineer with NASA. “It’s got these thick clouds, so it’s really hard to see from orbit. So instead, we’re taking the science instruments from the Curiosity Rover — their cameras, their chemistry labs, and their sensors — and we’re packaging them up in a 500-pound three-foot diameter titanium ball and we’re sending it skydiving.”

Even liftoff will be a challenge for the equipment, which will face up to fourteen times the force of gravity as it accelerates into space and significant vibration from the launch.

Next up will be a two-year journey through space, where temperatures swing wildly between extreme heat and extreme cold. Close to earth and in the sun, the probe could face temperatures around 250 degrees Fahrenheit. But if it happens to pass through a shadow, temperatures could fall abruptly below negative 150 degrees Fahrenheit. And that’s only the first part of its journey.

Once the probe reaches Venus, it will plunge into the solar system’s hottest atmosphere and relay data back to earth. Because of the time it takes for information to travel through space, none of these transmissions will arrive before the probe slams into Venus’s surface and is destroyed.

“The whole mission really boils down to one hour of June 2031 when we do that freefall,” Garrison said.

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SPRL Director Patrick McNally and his team will have to recreate the conditions the probe will experience in space to ensure that everything works properly upon arrival.

“There has to be extreme reliability. It might take three years to get there, but when it does it has to make measurements,” McNally said. “It needs to be able to turn on and work without a doubt. There’s no repair man in space.”

The rocket is scheduled to launch in 2029.