The US space agency challenged Colorado-based Black Swift Technologies (BST) to construct flying drones capable of withstanding Venus’s harsh atmosphere.
The company from Boulder, Colorado, specialises in the development of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) but NASA’s incredible task could be the hardest yet.
NASA’s contract with BST calls for a number of remote aerial drones to soar in parts Venus’ atmosphere which are not too dissimilar to conditions back home.
The proposed drone design envisions a “dynamic soaring” machine similar to many gliding aircraft on Earth.
Jack Elston, company CEO, said: “While there have been a variety of systems proposed for upper atmospheric observation of Venus, the planet’s high wind speeds pose a significant design challenge.
“Our solution will be designed to not only survive in the harsh wind environment, but also simultaneously perform targeted sampling of the atmosphere while continuously extracting energy, even on the darks side of the planet.”
The surface of Venus is an incredibly inhospitable landscape due to the planet’s close proximity to the sun.
Average surface temperatures peak around 467C, making Venus the hottest planet in the solar system.
But between 31 miles (50km) to 40 miles (65km) above the surface the atmospheric conditions are fairly reminiscent of the skies above Earth.
The temperatures and pressures on both planets are comparable which makes Venus a prime candidate for space exploration.
But the planet’s atmosphere also suffers from an effect known as super-rotation which whips up winds speeds up to 220mph (360km/h).
The super-rotation causes Venus’ atmosphere to circle the entire planet in just four Earth days.
Mr Elston said: “Black Swift Technologies has provided aerial solutions for wildland fires, volcanic observations, tornadoes, and hurricanes – some of the most extreme phenomena on Earth.
“This mission is a natural extension of our focus, only now we are concentrating on the extreme conditions of Venus.”
But this is not NASA’s first trip towards the scorching hot planet.
Since the 1960s at least 40 Venus-bound space missions have been attempted by NASA, Russia, Japan and the European Space Agency (ESA).
On December 14, 1962, NASA carried out its first successful flyby of Venus with the Mariner 2 space probe.
The Mariner 5 probe achieved the same result in 1967 and the Mariner 10 approached the planet in 1974.
Since then, the Pioneer Venus 2 landed on the planet’s surface and beamed collected data back to Earth for over an hour in 1978.
NASA’s last mission to Mars was the August 3, 2004, gravity assisted flyby of MESSENGER en route to Mercury.
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