Illustration showing the Venus probe falling through the planet's atmosphere. Rocket Lab, a private launch vehicle company, has teamed up with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to launch the first private spacecraft to Venus. The aim of this mission is to send a small probe to Venus to search for organic molecules in its atmosphere. This mission comes after researchers claimed to have detected signs of phosphine in Venus' atmosphere in 2020, a chemical typically produced by living organisms. The probe's size will only be 38 centimetres across and will have a weight of around 20 kilograms. The original launch date for this mission was scheduled for May 2023, but it has now been postponed to January 2025.