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Microflyers on Mars

Posted by michael on from the float-like-a-butterfly dept.

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."

4 of 17 comments (clear)

  1. Visible Mars Project by cybrpnk · · Score: 4, Funny

    Aircraft as small as a chocolate bar will one day fly on Mars?

  2. Questions? by 4of12 · · Score: 4, Interesting
    1. Have they got a good lead on solving the power to weight ratio problem?
    2. Getting the total energy /weight ratio high enough so the flyer has reasonable range (think hummingbirds)?
    3. Cost per unit?

    Cost is not so important, since we're willing to spend quite a bit to get these things to Mars, but even so, if the cost could be brought done enough there might be terrestrial applications for little drones loaded up with various sensors.

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  3. NASA and Biomorphic Systems..... by jsimon12 · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  4. Re:Flying on Mars is very, very difficult. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Actually, lift is proportional to density * velocity^2. So if the density is 1/10, you only need 3.2 times the speed.

    Actually, the martian atmosphere is 1/60th as dense as Earths. Also, mars has about 1/3 the gravity of earth, so you only need 1/3 as much lift.

    Put these all together and you need to fly about 4.5x as fast.

    Since drag is also proportional to density*velocity^2, drag is 1/3. At 4.5x the speed, you need about 1.5x the power to fly on earth. Not a big difference. The good news is that you get places a lot faster.

    .