Russia to commence space mission design, plans to revisit Venus before 2036

Russia plans to launch its Venera-D interplanetary mission to revisit Venus before 2036, and preparations are already underway, state media reported on Sunday.

The mission is now part of the country's new national space programme, and the preliminary design work on the mission will begin in January 2026, coinciding with the start of the national space project, Oleg Korablev, head of the Department of Planetary Physics at the Space Research Institute (IKI) of the Russian Academy of Sciences, was quoted as saying by TASS news agency.

The draft design phase is expected to take two years, and preparations have commenced in collaboration with the Lavochkin Association, a Russian space industry enterprise, including multiple coordination meetings to streamline progress, said Korablev, Xinhua News Agency reported.

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The scientist noted that the mission's launch date will be determined after the design stage is complete. "But it will definitely take place within the current planning period, no later than 2036," he said.

The Venera-D mission is planned to include a lander, a balloon probe, and an orbital spacecraft. Earlier this year, IKI's scientific director and academician Lev Zeleny said the launch is unlikely before 2034 or 2035.

Earlier this month, four astronauts from the US, Japan, and Russia, part of the NASA rotation mission, successfully docked at the International Space Station (ISS), after an approximately 15-hour journey, the US space agency said on 2 August.

Called Crew 11, the team involves NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Kimiya Yui, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov.

The crew lifted off at 11.43 am Eastern Time (9.13 p.m. IST) aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on 1 August.

The crew-11 joined NASA astronauts Anne McClain, Nichole Ayers, and Jonny Kim, JAXA astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonauts Kirill Peskov, Sergey Ryzhikov, and Alexey Zubritsky, who were already on board the ISS.