India proposes to send its own helicopter to Mars
India has now considering adding its own helicopter to its next Mars mission, dubbed the Martian Boundary Layer Explorer (Marble).
While ISRO’s rotorcraft is still in the conceptual stage, the agency envisions a drone that can fly as high as 100 meters in the thin Martian air. Along with the Marble instrument suite, the drone is expected to carry various sensors, including temperature, humidity, pressure, wind speed, electric field, trace species, and dust sensors.
Whether this mission will include a lander, rover, or orbiter as well is very unclear, which suggests strongly the entire mission profile is presently very much undecided as yet.
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India has now considering adding its own helicopter to its next Mars mission, dubbed the Martian Boundary Layer Explorer (Marble).
While ISRO’s rotorcraft is still in the conceptual stage, the agency envisions a drone that can fly as high as 100 meters in the thin Martian air. Along with the Marble instrument suite, the drone is expected to carry various sensors, including temperature, humidity, pressure, wind speed, electric field, trace species, and dust sensors.
Whether this mission will include a lander, rover, or orbiter as well is very unclear, which suggests strongly the entire mission profile is presently very much undecided as yet.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
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I think NASA / JPL have demonstrated they know how to do Mars helicopters, and can leave the exploitation of the technology to SpaceX, etc.
Now, how about doing a V-22 type craft? In order to explore Mars by air, we’re going to have to a) land and take off in rough terrain, and b) cruise in between with a big wing at high speed. Moving a fixed wing fast enough to generate sufficient lift in 1/100th the Earth’s atmosphere is probably a lot harder than moving a rotary wing to do the same, I would guess.
Ps. It may turn out to be impossible to do a V-22 effectively. So maybe a point-to-point rocket 🤔?