VISAR: A next generation interferometric radar for venus exploration

Magellan, a NASA mission to Venus in the early 1990s, mapped nearly the entire surface of Venus with an S-band (12 cm) synthetic aperture radar and microwave radiometer and made radar altimeter measurements of the topography, [1]. These measurements revolutionized our understanding of the geomorphology, geology and geophysical processes that have shaped the evolution of the surface of Venus. However, the lack of finer resolution imagery and topography of the surface than that obtained by the Magellan mission has hampered the definitive answer to key questions concerning the processes and evolution of the surface of Venus. The Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR Topography And Spectroscopy (VERITAS) Mission is a proposed mission to Venus designed to obtain high resolution imagery and topography of the surface using an X-band radar configured as a single pass radar interferometer (called VISAR) coupled with a multispectral NIR emissivity mapping sensor.