Future planetary exploration may draw upon a rich history of aeronautical progress here on Earth — from the Wright Brothers to centuries-old hot-air ballooning. Space engineers are charting novel ways to investigate Mars and other worlds in our solar system with innovative research underway to design robotic aerial craft that can plumb the atmospheric depths of Titan, a moon of Saturn, even slice through the clouds of Venus, or glide over the outer-planet gas giants.
October 18th, 2003
Flying Humans: Interview with David Glover Astrobiology Magazine
Prototype gliders for long-distance flying on Mars have reached their testing phase. A seasoned soaring guide and former President of the US Hang Gliding Association, David Glover, talks about the challenges of soaring on Earth and potentially elsewhere.
October 16th, 2003
ABQ tech firm wins $600K NASA grant New Mexico Business Weekly
Albuquerque-based Adherent Technologies Inc. has received a two-year, $600,000 NASA grant for work on inflatable wings for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) under Phase II of the space agency’s Small Business Technology Transfer Research program. The UAV inflatable wings are like automobile airbags. When UAV shoots out of a cannon-like device, the lightweight wings pop out and provide increased gliding stability. UAVs with these inflatable wings could eventually be used for exploration of Mars and Venus, as well as for military applications.
October 13th, 2003
NASA Research Team Successfully Flies First Laser-Powered Aircraft
Ever since the dawn of powered flight, it has been necessary for all aircraft to carry onboard fuel – whether in the form of batteries, fuel, solar cells, or even a human “engine” – in order to stay aloft. But a team of researchers from NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards, Calif., and the University of Alabama in Huntsville is trying to change that.
September 2nd, 2003
From Australia to Mars? The Age
Mars mania has subsided for most of us, but it’s just beginning for one Australian National University scientist. Dr Javaan Chahl heads for California’s Mojave Desert this week where he will demonstrate to NASA a prototype of what he hopes will be the future in planetary exploration. So far, mobile exploration of other worlds has been restricted to the Apollo moon buggies of the 1970s and unmanned Mars rovers like 1997’s Sojourner. But ground-based exploration is slow and has limited range. The next generation of robotic explorers will soar in the pink Martian skies to pick out ground sites of interest.
August 5th, 2003
Langley’s plane is not Mars-bound The Virginian-Pilot
NASA Langley’s unmanned airplane will not soar across Mars. In a phone call Monday morning, scientists at Langley Research Center in Hampton learned that the ARES plane was not chosen as part of the Mars Scout mission, possibly because of the Columbia shuttle disaster. “I’m really shocked and disappointed that it’s not ARES,” said Joel S. Levine, principal investigator for the Mars airplane. “They did point out the reason we weren’t selected was due to circumstances beyond our control, in part, NASA’s growing concern with reducing risk.”
June 30th, 2003
Students Learn About Virginia Designed Mars Airplane My Wise County
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.
May 19th, 2003
Innovative Wing Design Could Soar in Martian Skies Space News
A team of undergraduate engineering students from the University of Kentucky scored a partial success in a recent test of a prototype Mars exploration aircraft whose wings would inflate to take on their aerodynamic shape once within the thin martian atmosphere. Inflatable wings are seen as a promising solution for a vexing problem facing NASA engineers: building an aircraft that can be successfully unfurled or unfolded into its flight configuration after being stowed within the tight confines of a space capsule for the long journey to the red planet. The problem has twice abruptly halted NASA efforts to develop a glider or powered aircraft to explore Mars.
May 16th, 2003
Martian aircraft to be built
Soon, a small aircraft laden with sensors and a high-speed datalink could be flying over the mountains of Mars – the first aircraft to fly over the terrain of another world. Called Ares (Aerial Regional-scale Environmental Survey of Mars), it could, if all goes well, be flying over the Red Planet’s southern uplands in just five years’ time. After a successful series of half-scale tests, the US space agency (Nasa) has ordered a full-scale prototype to be built. Ares is in competition with three other Mars exploration proposals for a Nasa launch in 2007. The final selection of one, or possibly two, missions will be made later this year.
May 2nd, 2003
Flight path for fuel cells The Engineer
NASA’s Revolutionary Aeropropulsion Concepts programme is aiming to produce a fuel cell-powered aircraft the size of a Boeing 737 with zero CO2 emissions. ‘We think that fuel cells offer the greater long-term benefit if they can be made to work because they have a higher inherent thermal efficiency than conventional aircraft engines,’ said Peter McCallum, deputy head of NASA’s propulsion and power projects.