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I am interested in what the surface of Venus looks like in true color, but have discovered that true color images of Venusian surface are rare, and am hoping that a lander mission is planned to take surface photos of Venus.

I have found that, up to now, most missions to Venus were flybys, orbiters, and some of these included atmospheric probes. But, are there currently any planned lander or rover missions to Venus?

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    $\begingroup$ Not that I've heard of, but technologies for heat resistant electronics and materials are developing well, so it is becoming more feasible. AFAIK a top priority at Venus is seismology, to learn how it resurfaced so recently and why it has no magnetic field. And seismologists want several months of data at least, which is hard to survive on Venus. Modern instruments can do some seismology from inside the atmosphere and even from orbit. I think we'll see such kinds of missions first, and even that is just proposals. $\endgroup$
    – LocalFluff
    Nov 4, 2015 at 11:10
  • $\begingroup$ @LocalFluff: I wonder how feasible for the purpose of "several months of data" a bunch of microlanders would be. While one lander survives a couple days at most, another is deployed from the orbit before the prior one would fail. $\endgroup$
    – SF.
    Nov 4, 2015 at 12:51
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    $\begingroup$ Head over to VEXAG and check their reports and you'd find more detailed information in their past meetings proceedings and reports. $\endgroup$
    – TildalWave
    Nov 4, 2015 at 12:51

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NASA's New Frontiers program has been calling for a Venus lander (Venus In Situ Explorer) on every solicitation. Venus landers are proposed every time, sometimes making it to Step 2 in the competition (e.g. SAGE), but a Venus lander has not been selected yet. Maybe next time.

There are color images of the surface of Venus from Venera. I'm not sure what "true color" would be at the surface of Venus, since there's so little light it is essentially equivalent to early night on Earth. Our color vision is diminished in low light, so a human on the surface of Venus (soon to be dead) would not see a lot of color without a bright flashlight.

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The Russian Venera missions 9 (1975), 10 (1975), 13 (1982), and 14 (1982) all took images of the Venusian surface. Venera 13 and 14 took color images.

enter image description here enter image description here

Russia is also planning another Venera mission called Venera-D. It was initially proposed in 2003, but the initial proposal has gone through several changes. The plan is currently much smaller than it was before. From Wikipedia:

In its original conception, it had a large orbiter, sub-satellite, two balloons, two small landers, and a large, long-lived lander.

Now the plan is to send only an orbiter with a subsatellite orbiter, and the lander. Initially the lander was considered long-lasting because it was supposed to survive for 30 days. The current plan is that the lander should survive about 3 hours. Right now it's planned to be launched in 2024.

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