NASA’s Venus Chamber Sets a New Record

Venus is sometimes known as Earth’s sister planet, but its surface is a terrible place for machines. At NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, there is a special chamber called GEER that copies the conditions on Venus: extreme heat, very high pressure and the planet’s unusual air.

In July 2017, samples were removed from the chamber after a test that lasted 80 days, followed by two weeks of cooling. That almost doubled the chamber’s old record of 42 days. Researchers from Case Western Reserve University worked with GEER’s engineers. They put 13 minerals, 11 rocks and nine samples of glass inside.

The goal is to record which reactions take place and to understand which materials might be useful for future missions to Venus. One of the scientists, Ralph Harvey, described Venus as a terrible place. The team cannot solve every problem, he said, but their work is a first step toward future missions.

The chamber was improved last spring. Now engineers can check the gases inside during a test, and they can add gases one by one to change the mix at any time. According to Leah Nakley, the chief test engineer, the 80-day test showed that GEER can easily handle long tests.