TAMPA, Fla. — South Korea’s state-backed Institute for Basic Science (IBS) has ordered the first of five cubesats to study Venus from low Earth orbit (LEO) starting next year, bolstering sustained planetary research as flagship missions face budget uncertainty.
Lithuania-based NanoAvionics announced June 2 it had secured a contract to provide an 8U satellite for CLOVE, or Chasing the Long-term Variability of Our Nearest Neighbor Planet Venus. The spacecraft would carry ultraviolet and near-infrared sensors from IBS to monitor Venus’ atmosphere.
IBS aims to deploy a new CLOVE satellite every three years over a 15-year period, covering at least one full 11-year solar cycle in total, to collect data that could shed more light on how Earth’s sister planet evolved into a hostile world.
“This mission reflects a growing trend in space science, where small satellites play an increasingly important role in complementing larger-scale missions,” NanoAvionics CEO Atle Wøllo said.
More than 20 research-focused missions have used the company’s satellite platform to date, Wøllo said, ranging from materials research to Earth science and astrophysics. CLOVESat-1 would be the first satellite NanoAvionics has built for planetary research.
Planetary science from LEO
Venus appears close to the Sun from Earth’s perspective, enabling a satellite in LEO to observe the planet during daylight passes for roughly half of each orbit.
“LEO has a clear advantage over many launching opportunities, so we do not need to limit follow-up satellites to special launching windows,” Lee Yeon Joo, chief investigator of the Planetary Atmospheres Group at IBS, said via email.
“Another important benefit is the cost-efficiency of operating small satellites in LEO as it doesn’t involve the complexities and risks of interplanetary mission planning.”
Deploying successive satellites would also help minimize the effects of instrument aging, which Lee said would provide more consistent data for a “time series” of Venus-disk reflectivity than relying on a single long-duration mission.
“Of course, a planetary mission can provide excellent spatial resolution and complex instruments with operation plans, which a cubesat cannot achieve easily,” Lee added. “The CLOVESats’ data will complement planetary missions.”
However, three major upcoming Venus missions face an uncertain future amid steep proposed cuts to NASA science programs under the Trump Administration’s fiscal year 2026 budget request, subject to Congress approval.
NASA’s DAVINCI and VERITAS programs are in line for cancellation, while the agency would also end its participation in the European Space Agency’s EnVision mission.
ESA awarded Thales Alenia Space a contract worth 367 million euros ($420 million) earlier this year to lead development of the EnVision spacecraft, slated to launch to Venus in November 2031.
VERITAS (Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy) was scheduled to launch around the same time, after slipping years behind schedule.
NASA was targeting around the end of 2030 to deploy DAVINCI, or Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging.
