A small airplane is being designed to fly in the alien atmosphere over the mountainous terrain of Mars in a project known as the Aerial Regional-scale Environmental Survey (ARES) at the NASA Langley Research Center. The ARES aircraft would be the first plane to fly in the atmosphere of another planet if it is successful in both its August selection by NASA Headquarters and its 2007 launch, 7-month, 250-million mile journey, and 2008 entry into the Martian atmosphere.