For more than ten years, this planet has fallen in scientific neglect, in the sense that new missions to investigate it have been placed on hold. But JAXA is about to break the cycle with the May 18 launch of its Venus Climate Orbiter spacecraft, which is being shipped this week to the Tanegashima Space Center. According to mission scientists for Akatsuki, one of the primary objectives for the new mission is to determine precisely what drives the atmosphere of our scorching-hot neighbor to rotate around Venus at speeds of up to 60 times higher than that of the planet's rotation.