The Determination of the Rotational State and Interior Structure of Venus with VERITAS

Understanding the processes that led Venus to its current state and will drive future evolution is a major objective of next generation orbiters. In this work we analyze retrieval spin vector, tidal response, moment inertia with VERITAS, NASA Discovery-class mission. By simulating systematic joint analysis Doppler tracking data tie points provided by onboard synthetic aperture radar, show VERITAS provide accuracies (3σ) in estimates tidal Love number k2 4.6 × 10−4, phase lag 0°.05, factor 9.8 10−4 (0.3% expected value). Applying these results recent models interior, much-improved constraints on interior structure planet.