Microflyers on Mars

Birds of Fire writes: "This article on Yahoo reports on work in Australia to develop tiny aircraft for Mars exploration. "Aircraft weighing as little as a chocolate bar could one day be darting over the surface of Mars with the agility of dragonflies and the eyes of bees."

Comments

NASA and Biomorphic Systems.....

[jsimon12]

Here, this is a much better link with information on the entire system in which the microflyers would be used and how they would communicate. Evidently the microflyers are a portion of the proposed mission, other little robots and such would join in for a land/air/etc/etc type team.

Flying on Mars is very, very difficult.

[Marsh Jedi]

Mars has about 1/10th the amount of air earth does. That means you have to travel at multiples of whatever your takeoff speed is on earth to generate enough lift.

So let's say your drone's stall speed is 20mph on earth? Try 200 mph on Mars. Suddenly your 12 inch model plane needs a several hundred foot runway, at the very least.

Okay now, so let's talk about turning--remember you need 200 mph of speed minimum to stay in the air.

You only get one-tenth of the air over your control surfaces, meaning one-tenth the maneuverability.

Finally, landing must be done at 200 mph for something that only needs 20mph on earth.

Tailhook, anyone?

Re:Flying on Mars is very, very difficult.

[global_diffusion]

Mars does have a much weaker gravitational field. I would guess that it would make it easier to stay up once you were up. I don't know anything about aerodynamics, but I'd think the gravitational constant would figure in somewhere, making the ratio Mars/Earth Speed Needed smaller.

RTFA!

[pythorlh]

The article does not say that these things use GPS, it says that there is no GPS on Mars, so we need new techniques.