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.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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 🤔?