Fly Over Mars... in a Robotic Balloon

Roland Piquepaille writes "A Californian company, Global Aerospace Corporation (GAR), is developing remote-controlled balloons for the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC). BBC News Online reports that their goal is to send these balloons carrying robots and cameras to explore Mars skies. But it's not for a near term future. The robotic StratoSail will have a stabilizing wing suspended several miles below it. It will be able to stay above Mars for months. It will send robotic probes to monitor the surface and minilabs to carry out experiments. This overview contains more details, references and images about the StratoSail."

Comments

This'll be great...

[The Human Cow]

...until the Martians bring out their peashooters.

New Mars Innovations

[W32.Klez.A]

The interesting thing about all these new Mars races is that instead of just the US and Russia going at it, we have all manner of companies and countries going for it. A lot of this stuff seems far-fetched, mind-you, but I think that just means there's more chance for some company or country that we're not expecting to make more of a difference than we can imagine. This seemed a little odd to me, but then I realized I wasn't thinking outside the box, and decided to consider its plausibility.

Re:New Mars Innovations

[AndroidCat]

We can wait and see how well private-enterprise Moon exploration does in Oct-Nov.

Dependence on atmospheric pressure

[DirtyJ]

I would think that the success of this would depend on our knowledge of the density of the Martian atmosphere. Do we know much about this? Since the pressure will decline with increased altitude, I guess even imperfect knowledge of the absolute pressure could still result in a successful mission, as the balloon would just sink or rise to an altitude of equilibrium. If so, then the balloon could end up with a different field of view than designed. Anyone out there with better knowledge of such atmospheric issues?

Re:Dependence on atmospheric pressure

[Cyclotron_Boy]

Yeah, and this is actually an old idea that was used extensively by the Soviets during their push for planetary exploration. Since the atmosphere of Venus was so hot and dense, they were able to float the balloons with extremely heavy loads. The scheme worked well during the Venusian "night," until the sun came and expanded the volume of gas in the balloon, bursting it. The idea for balloons on Mars has been "floated" before, but it looks like it just might happen this time...

Re:Dependence on atmospheric pressure

[mikerich]

I would think that the success of this would depend on our knowledge of the density of the Martian atmosphere. Do we know much about this?

We know quite a lot.

The Soviet Mars 6 probe recorded atmospheric measurements all the way to the surface, as did the two Viking probes.

And it is routine to use measurements of the strength of signals from orbiters to measure atmospheric density. As the probe slips behind the planet, any atmosphere will interfere with the signal strength. Measure it finely enough and you can plot the varying density with altitude.

This isn't the first proposed balloon on Mars. the Soviet Union and France planned a mission for 1992, which was then slipped to 1994 then to 1996 and finally cancelled. The mission would have comprised of a heavy orbiter which would have acted as a communications relay and survey craft, a number of very small landers and/or penetrators and a pair of balloons.

The balloons would have used a combination of helium and solar heating to gain lift. The helium would provide most of the lift, the warmth of the Sun would give it bouyancy during the day. As it warmed, it would rise and drift along providing an almost constant aerial survey.

In the evening, as it cooled, the balloon would sink back to the surface - the helium would prevent the balloon snagging on the surface and keep the antennae upright. Meanwhile, instruments loaded into a long 'snake' slung below the balloon would be making surface measurements and inspecting the geology.

The balloon was tested on Earth and proved to be highly successful, it's a tragedy that the collapse of the Soviet Union prevented it flying.

Best wishes,
Mike.

YEA- *cough cough choke*

[Berrik]

Roses are red
Violets are blue
On Soviet Mars
Balloons fly you

Re:good link i was reading

[Siergen]

Hmm, so the wing has to be lowered to an altitude with different winds (direction and/or speed) in order to allow the balloon to "tack" into the wind like an inverted sail boat. That's a neat idea! I can easily understand how that would work here on Earth.

However, I was under the impression that the less dense Martian atmosphere changed little with altitude. Is there enough variation in Martian winds with altitude for this system to work there?

We can't land a big air bag on Mars

[ObviousGuy]

But we will be able to set up a giant balloon with a big-ass wing suspended by miles of cable flying over the Martian surface.

Color me skeptical.

interesting...

[highwaytohell]

This looks like a real possibility, and with more Mars rovers being sent over and us gaining further knowledge of the planet then this looks like a very real possibility. They would just have to factor in the nature of the wind direction, velocity, currents etc. But this sort of project, i'd assume, would go a lot further and be able to map more of Mars' terrain than a rover and give us a better view of the geological structure of Mars.

Attempted before

[chamilto0516]

Nah, this is nothing new. My three year old has tried to send every ballon he has got is hands on straight to Mars. We have started tying little loops in the string for his wrists to stop this.

If they can get a ballon that high, I say go for it.

red ballons

[QEDog]

Great way to start a war with the Marsians!

99 red ballons floating in the summer sky
Panic bells, it's red alert
There's something here from somewhere else
They war machine springs of life
Opens up one eager eye
Focusing it on the sky
As 99 red ballons go by.

Oh well, no more 80's music...

Use as a Wi-Fi / Broadcasting Point

[Gurezaemon]

Am I the only one that thinks this could be a useful way to keep stable a base from which to broadcast all sorts of stuff?

Tethered balloons have long annoying (and heavy?) tethers for planes to run into, but this seems to stay above that height.

Covering the gas bag with solar cells or the like could mean the thing could stay up there for ages.

Pie in the sky

[StickMang]

This is funny because I work for NASA's Balloon Program Office, and I think this was an idea that we rejected. From what I remember, the relationship between Global Aerospace and the BPO went sour, so I assume that after we rejected their proposal on this, they went around trying to sell it to different parts of NASA.

We're developing our own balloon trajectory control system that hasn't been publicised yet, and it will be what flies on mars and earth, not this pile of garbage from GAC. I beleive the model they showed us was flawed in many ways, so we decided we could design it better in-house. Not really sure why there's an article on this, but you might as well not worry about any advancements on this particular project, as it will never materialize.

headline news

[Joe the Lesser]

An object crashed into the dunes here on Mars from the sky, which among increasing reports of so-called 'alien' activity, has escalated the public's fear of an invasion.

The Martian government continues to deny any knowledge of beings from the Blue planet, and claims the object was just a weather balloon, and nothing to worry about.

Good and bad

[Gorimek]

Good: This avoids the by far most dangerous part of current Mars missions: The landing. Since the balloon doesn't have to hit the ground, it won't break when it hits the ground.

Bad: Mars' atmosphere is about 0.5% of our. In other words, it's 99.5% vacuum. How ginormogantuan must a balloon be to carry any serious weight there?? Gravity is just 1/3, but that hardly begins to compensate.

Re:Atmoshperic Density

[CComMack]

For hydrogen to explode, it needs to be in the presence of oxygen.

This is much less a concern in the Martian atmosphere, which is 95% corbon dioxide, as opposed to Earth's 80%-20% nitrogen-oxygen mix.

As for storage and transport, hydrogen can either be well contained (rocket fuel rarely explodes prematurely these days), or generated by a chemical reaction upon arrival (anyone remember what you get from adding a metal to acid from middle school chemistry? Though I'd imagine the medium of choice would likely be something like hydrogen peroxide. IANA Chemical Engineer.)

A new conspiracy

[skinfitz]

We humans think we are so clever don't we? We've had (allegedly) men on the moon, and now we are remotely exploring Mars, but really there is something more sinister going on right under our noses.

You see, in the future, the question may be asked "what race of beings first made it to Mars?" and the answer? Machines.

You know the way dolphins triain people to feed them fish so they don't have to bother with all that pesky hunting? Well it looks to me suspiciously like the machines may be planning to colonize Mars first by tricking us into financing their operations. They already have made it there in the past, and in fact right now they have two mobile individuals on the surface that are imagining god knows what fate for human kind. On earth, they have managed to get a model T800 Terminator into a strong political position, which could end up making President.

Ultimately, ironically, the epitaph of the human race may be "Hasta la vista, baby."

So basically...

[Channard]

.. the Martian Govt can explain away the crash of an alien craft on their planet as a wrecked balloon and actually be right.

prior art

[savuporo]

A mention of prior art in balooning the other planets would be in order. Many people arent aware of the fact that Russian Venera program, what later become Vega, successfully flew two balloons in Venusian atmosphere in 1984.
Geoffrey Landis has a couple very thought-provoking papers on his website, regarding possible further developments of atmospheric flight on both mars and venus, and possibilities for human living in upper atmosphere ....