Engineering models of turbulence in the Venus atmosphere: Application to DAVINCI and other missions

A model of turbulence in the Venus atmosphere is developed for simulating the dynamics of vehicles such as balloons or descent probes, with particular application to the low-latitude daytime descent of the DAVINCI probe currently in development. A discrete ‘random-walk’ turbulence formulation of continuous gusts is used, which offers simple implementation for numerical flight simulations. The model is validated against Doppler observations of the Venera 11 and 12 landers and other data, and some features and challenges of interpreting models and observations are discussed. Model parameter variations as a function of latitude and local time are suggested. • Reviews historical measurements of turbulent winds in the Venus atmosphere • Develops simple numerical model of a turbulence profile for mission simulations • Compares model with available data