The VeSUV (Venus Spectroscopy in UV) instrument for ESA’s EnVision mission has been entrusted by the manufacturer HORIBA to LIRA for the vacuum and thermal qualification of its optical diffraction gratings. These tests are carried out in the OBAMA (Optical Bench for Analysis of MAtrix) chamber, one of the laboratory’s vacuum and thermal test facilities dedicated to space instruments. The test campaigns, conducted in a vacuum between −35 °C and +55 °C, enable the components to be qualified under conditions representative of the space environment.
Scheduled for 2031, the EnVision mission will be the first European mission to provide a comprehensive view of Venus, from its inner core to its upper atmosphere, in order to understand why its evolution diverged from that of Earth. As part of this, the French consortium comprising LATMOS, IRAP and LIRA, with the support of CNES, is providing the VeSUV ultraviolet spectrometer. This will map sulphur gases as well as the as yet unknown UV absorber present at the top of Venus’s clouds, in order to better understand the links between geological activity and atmospheric variability.
