It has been reported that a Virginia-based aerospace company is planning to build a plane that will be able to fly through Venus's atmosphere by 2021.

In the race to enter NASA’s New Frontiers planetary science competition, Northrop Grumman Corporation is developing the inflatable, propeller-powered aircraft for a years-long cruise in the skies of Venus, Space.com reported.

The plane will have almost twice the wingspan of a Boeing 737. It is a part of the Venus mission concept called Venus Atmospheric Manoeuvrable Platform (VAMP).

The plane will sample the acidic alien atmosphere on Venus. The firm is facing other companies in a competition to get $1 billion in funding from NASA in order to get off the ground.

VAMP wingspan would be of 46 meters. The plane would carry on board up to 200 kg worth of instruments such as cameras and atmospheric samplers.

It would be flown 50-70 km above the surface of Venus, in a region of the atmosphere where the pressure is roughly equal to that on the Earth.

It has been told that the plane would be carried to Venus by a spacecraft. The ground temperature on Venus - Earth's superheated sister planet - hovers around 460 degrees Celsius.

Constantine Tsang from Southwest Research Institute in Boulder said, “Surviving on the surface for any longer than four hours and getting high-resolution data is a challenge”.

As per previous record, a series of Russian probes sent to the planet in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, known as the Venera spacecraft, were able to survive no more than a few hours on the surface.

The next New Frontiers competition is set to begin in the 2016 fiscal year that starts from October 1.

Jim Green, NASA's director of planetary science, had said in an earlier statement that he winning mission would have to be ready for launch around 2021.