Kongsberg NanoAvionics, a leading small satellite bus manufacturer and mission integrator, has been selected by the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) in South Korea to build the first CubeSat for the world’s first long-term planetary science campaign which will use a series of CubeSats to monitor Venus from low Earth orbit.
This long-term Venus observation initiative, the CLOVE project (Chasing the Long-term Variability of Our Nearest Neighbor Planet Venus) has been a research project within the IBS Planetary Atmospheres Group since 2022. Its first satellite, CLOVESat-1, an 8U CubeSat bus to be designed and manufactured by NanoAvionics, is scheduled to launch in 2026. IBS plans to launch a new satellite every three years over a 15-year period to span at least one full solar activity cycle (11 years).
Under the contract, NanoAvionics will also integrate the scientific payload provided by IBS, conduct environmental testing, arrange launch services, and manage launch and early orbit operations (LEOP). CLOVESat-1 will investigate Venus’s atmospheric temporal variabilities of cloud top altitude, vertical structure of clouds, gaseous sulfur dioxide abundance, and mysterious unknown absorber(s).
Lee Yeon Joo, chief investigator of the Planetary Atmospheres Group at IBS, said: “The payload for this mission was developed through a domestic partnership and reflects South Korea’s growing capabilities in planetary science instrumentation. With the support of NanoAvionics and their flight-proven CubeSat platform, we will gather continuous space-based data that has been inaccessible through previous missions. The findings will help us better understand the evolving nature of the Venusian atmosphere, its climate, and how it compares to Earth’s. We welcome collaboration for space exploration and data analysis, as we plan to make the data public.”
The first CubeSat built by NanoAvionics will carry instruments covering ultraviolet to near-infrared at four selected wavelengths and a total of eight channels, including polarization filters, which will work in tandem with ground-based observatories.
Atle Wøllo, CEO of Kongsberg NanoAvionics, said: “This mission reflects a growing trend in space science, where small satellites play an increasingly important role in complementing larger-scale missions. We’ve already seen this in multimessenger X-ray astronomy, where NanoAvionics-built smallsats provide valuable data alongside flagship observatories, filling critical observational gaps and providing more data points and agility.
“With more than 20 research-focused missions using our satellite buses to conduct everything from material research to Earth science and astrophysics, CLOVESat-1 will extend our platform’s heritage into planetary research.”
The satellite’s high temporal resolution data will help researchers track elusive atmospheric changes and, over 15 years, provide valuable insight into Venus’s climate evolution. These clues may help scientists better understand volcanic activity, solar-atmosphere interactions, and planetary climate shifts, such as how a planet once resembling Earth became hostile to life.
Consistent and long-term monitoring from follow-up CLOVESats is expected to overlap the operative time with the upcoming NASA and ESA Venus missions, DAVINCI, VERITAS, and EnVision. The simultaneous observations by CLOVESats can provide a cross-comparison reference of the planet’s time variable reflectance of the global view, while the orbiters acquire high spatial resolution data.
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