Private Venus mission postponed to 2025.

Rocket Lab's first private mission to Venus, aimed at investigating the Venusian atmosphere to search for conditions needed for life to exist, has been delayed until at least January 2025. The mission is funded by Rocket Lab, MIT, and undisclosed philanthropists and is estimated to cost just $10 million. The probe will be diminutive, measuring 15 inches across and weighing 45 pounds. It will leave Earth on Rocket Lab's Electron rocket and will then be carried to Venus by the company's Photon spacecraft bus. The probe will have just three to five minutes to collect data as it plummets from an altitude of 37 to 28 miles in Venus' atmosphere, measuring the composition, concentration, and shapes of complex organic molecules.