NASA released details of the prototype for what could be the first aircraft to fly around on Mars in mid-2020s.
The space agency plans to test the Preliminary Research Aerodynamic Design to Land on Mars (Prandtl-m) later in 2015. The plane is a flying wing aircraft that would be able to fold and fit conveniently in a rover.
"The aircraft would be part of the ballast that would be ejected from the aeroshell that takes the Mars rover to the planet," Al Bowers, NASA Armstrong chief scientist and Prandtl-m program manager, said in a press release." It would be able to deploy and fly in the Martian atmosphere and glide down and land. The Prandtl-m could overfly some of the proposed landing sites for a future astronaut mission and send back to Earth very detailed high resolution photographic map images that could tell scientists about the suitability of those landing sites.
"It would have a flight time of right around 10 minutes. The aircraft would be gliding for the last 2,000 feet to the surface of Mars and have a range of about 20 miles."
For the test, NASA plans to set the plane loose at 10,000 feet in the air in order to simulate Martian atmospheric conditions. NASA plans to send the plane to Mars with the next rover planned to launch between 2022 and 2024, the space agency said in its release.
"The actual aircraft's wingspan when it is deployed would measure 24 inches and weigh less than a pound," Bowers said. "With Mars gravity 38 percent of what it is on Earth, that actually allows us up to 2.6 pounds and the vehicle will still weigh only 1 pound on Mars. It will be made of composite material, either fiberglass or carbon fiber. We believe this particular design could best recover from the unusual conditions of an ejection."
