Future Prospects

Abstract

In spite of all spacecraft that have visited our nearest planetary neighbor a large number of questions remain to be answered. Exploration of Venus is far from completed. In this chapter we summarize the most important questions to be answered, both in the short term, feasible with the technology of today, and those that only can be addressed in the medium to long term, after additional technology development. A large number of missions have been proposed in recent years but since Venus Express (Svedhem etal.2007) and the ill fated Akatsuki (Nakamura etal.2007) none of these have been selected for flight. Short descriptions of these mission proposals, as much as the information is openly available, are given in the following section. The next section deals with future ground based observations and joint space-ground observations. Finally the priorities for future missions, both for the benefit of improving on the theoretical models for atmospheric circulation, as dealt with in this book, and for an improved understanding of the evolution of Venus as a planet and of terrestrial planets in general, are discussed.