ESA EnVision

Example of mission planning for EnVision Venus orbital insertion.

In June 2021, ESA selected a new M-class mission, Envision, to study Venus planet from its inner core to upper atmosphere. This mission is still in development but its proposed orbital trajectory is already available on the ESA-SPICE archive.

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

from planetary_coverage import VENUS, TourConfig
from planetary_coverage.ticks import date_ticks, km_ticks

Download EnVision kernels and load the orbital insertion trajectory

Note: the location of the EnVision kernels are not explicitly listed in the metakernel header, we need to provide this information manually in remote_kernels.

tour = TourConfig(
    mk='study_esc_t2_south_voi_v040',
    version='v040_20220503_001',
    kernels_dir='./data/EnVision/kernels',
    remote_kernels='https://spiftp.esac.esa.int/data/SPICE/EnVision/kernels',
    download_kernels=True,
    spacecraft='EnVision',
    target='Venus',
)

voi_traj = tour['2033-05-01':'2033-06-01':'6 h']

voi_traj

<SpacecraftTrajectory> Observer: ENVISION | Target: VENUS
 - UTC start time: 2033-05-01T00:00:00.000
 - UTC stop time: 2033-06-01T00:00:00.000
 - Nb of pts: 125

fig = plt.figure(figsize=(10, 7))
ax = fig.add_subplot()


ax.plot(voi_traj.utc, voi_traj.alt, color='tab:green')

ax.set_ylabel('Altitude')
ax.xaxis.set_major_formatter(date_ticks)
ax.yaxis.set_major_formatter(km_ticks)

plt.title('EnVision Venus orbital insertion')

plt.show()

First orbits after insertion

orbits = tour['2033-05-21':'2033-05-25':'1 min']

orbits

<SpacecraftTrajectory> Observer: ENVISION | Target: VENUS
 - UTC start time: 2033-05-21T00:00:00.000
 - UTC stop time: 2033-05-25T00:00:00.000
 - Nb of pts: 5,761

fig = plt.figure(figsize=(14, 9))
ax = fig.add_subplot(projection=VENUS)

ax.plot(orbits, 'alt', vmax=20_000, cmap='Greens_r', lw=3)

ax.set_title('EnVision orbits after Venus insertion')

plt.show()

Download

• 06-envision.ipynb

• 06-envision.py