Blue Origin scrubbed a launch attempt of the NG-2 mission on Nov. 9, 2025, due to cumulus clouds in the area. Image: Spaceflight Now
Update Nov. 9, 5 p.m. EST (2200 UTC): Blue Origin scrubbed the mission and is assessing its next launch opportunity.
Conditions on Venus’ surface have largely remained a mystery for decades. Carl Sagan famously pointed out that people were quick to jump to conclusions, such as that there are dinosaurs living there, from scant little evidence collected from the planet. But just because we have little actual data doesn’t mean we can’t draw conclusions, and better yet models, from the data we do have. A new paper from Maxence Lefèvre of the Sorbonne and his colleagues takes what little data has been collected from Venus’ surface and uses it to valid a model of what the wind and dust conditions down there would be like - all for the sake of making the work of the next round of Venusian explorer easier.
