Engineers at the University of Arizona and a scientist at the American space agency NASA have developed a lightweight sailplane that can fly above Mars for several days at a time. The plane is equipped with flight, temperature and gas sensors, as well as cameras. It is designed to gather data about the Red Planet's atmosphere.
There are currently eight active spacecraft orbiting Mars and three rover vehicles also exploring the surface. But these research vehicles are limited in their ability to collect data on the area just above the Mars surface, because they depend on energy from the sun and need batteries to operate.
The researchers say the sailplane they developed is lightweight and low-cost. It will be able to use a method called dynamic soaring. This method permits a plane to gain energy by repeatedly crossing boundaries between air masses of different strength levels. This kind of wind activity is known to be common on Mars.
NASA has experimented with a small helicopter on Mars, the Ingenuity. So far, tests of Ingenuity have been successful. But the experimental helicopter is only able to fly for a few minutes at a time and can only reach heights of about 12 meters. "Its technology has been very limited by energy," says the study's lead author, Adrien Bouskela. Sailplanes, on the other hand, can fly over the Martian skies for days, allowing them to reach far beyond Ingenuity and visit new places.
The team has carried out tests of the sailplane by attaching it to a balloon floating in the sky. More tests are planned for this summer when researchers are expected to send the plane up to about 4500 meters above sea level, where Earth's atmosphere is thinner and flight conditions are similar to those of Mars. "We can use Earth as a laboratory to study flight to Mars," said Sergei Shakrayev, a professor at the University of Arizona.
