All articles tagged with #envision
The European Space Agency will press ahead with the EnVision Venus orbiter using a European radar payload after NASA signaled it cannot deliver the originally planned US‑built radar; Europe has pushed the launch to 2032 to develop its own radar, while NASA’s budget pressures drive cuts to international partnerships, prompting ESA to cover the radar role domestically and explore other collaborations.
Budget pressures threaten NASA's three-mission “decade of Venus” plan, likely leaving only one mission moving forward: DAVINCI, which targets a December 2030 launch and a January 2033 descent probe, as Envision and VERITAS face funding constraints. ESA negotiations over Envision and potential domestication of its radar add to the uncertainty, and missing the 2033 window could push Venus-era delays by years.
Envision's Ally Solos smart glasses, priced at $499 on pre-sale, utilize advanced AI models to assist vision-impaired users by reading text, describing surroundings, recognizing faces, and translating languages, offering up to 16 hours of battery life and a range of accessibility features.
Envision has launched Ally Solos Glasses, a pair of smart glasses designed for low-vision users, featuring AI-powered capabilities like reading text, describing surroundings, and recognizing people and objects, with a pre-order price of $399 and shipping expected in October 2025.
Delays to NASA's VERITAS mission, originally scheduled to fly in 2027, might affect the two other missions set to explore Venus. The White House's 2024 budget proposal for NASA holds the mission funding for VERITAS at a mere $1.5 million per year for the near future, placing the mission in a "deep freeze." VERITAS was supposed to be the first mission to return to Venus since NASA's Magellan spacecraft orbited it nearly 30 years ago. Its indefinite delay has disbanded the mission's engineering wing, and scientists are now worrying about its impact on two other related missions to Venus.
Geophysicist Robert Herrick of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, has caught one of Venus's volcanoes in the act, providing the first clear evidence of volcanic activity on the planet. Venus's dense atmosphere makes it difficult to study its surface, but radar images from NASA's Magellan probe have revealed changes on the surface that can only be explained by volcanic activity. Future missions, such as NASA's Veritas and Esa's EnVision, will carry better imaging radar than Magellan and are expected to provide more information about Venus's volcanic activity.