Drone on Mars

I was just in the space exploration section of ATS and saw someone talk about how it's a shame we can't travel to Mars and back quickly to get a Human eye on strange things. This made me think that the Rover isn't enough to scan the area. My knowledge in tech and space physics isn't the greatest so forgive me but I was wondering if it were possible to build an ariel drone that could attach to Curiosity, charge and then fly off every certain amount of hours and get a more flexible view of specific things on Mars.

I understand that Curiosity is already there and we're unable to build something to attach it to, but could the drone be done? If so, why hasn't it been done yet? Surely it's better for places like steep craters, crevasses, canyons and so on.

The Martian atmosphere is one hundredth the pressure of earth's, just not enough of it to support wings or rotor blades, a big balloon perhaps, but no real way to steer it.

a reply to: pikestaff

Although a balloon in unreliable you could use a weight system for direction. I guess until we discover reusable fuel we'll have to wait for a thruster system to allow that.

unpredictable differences in atmosphere and pressure and signal response lag would probably nix this with our current capabilities
but a couple more decades of messing about landing things on other planets and it seems like a pretty likely future method of exploration.
and by pretty likely we mean it's hard to imagine it not happening eventually

a reply to: jonwhite866

To fly a "remote plane" on another planet is quiet different than flying one in the local park.
I'm sure it can be done but i guess it's more beneficial and less expensive to send a satellite into orbit that can take high res vids en pics.
?

a reply to: pikestaff

Indeed. But its gravitational field is also weaker than Earth's - in theory you would not need as much lift than on Earth, just enough energy to keep it flying.

The real problem is the time it takes for Earth's signals to reach the martian drone and vice-versa. We will have to remember that we will never be able to control the drone in real time, and any emergency manoeuvres will take around 6 minutes best case scenario (it takes 182 seconds for signals to reach Earth, so a round trip is 182 + 182), and over 44 minutes at worst (22 minutes + 22 minutes).

It can be done with winged aircraft..It might have been done back a few years,

"The Aerial Regional-scale Environmental Survey (ARES) was a proposal by NASA's Langley Research Center to build a powered aircraft that would fly on Mars.The ARES team sought to be selected and funded as a NASA Mars Scout Mission for a 2011 or 2013 launch window. However, the MAVEN mission was chosen instead"



en.wikipedia.org...

So plenty of ideas there. What I find strange is why there is no simple static camera/s situated in strategic areas to record visible ground or atmospheric changes, over a period.

I wouldn't say fly it remotely like in the park. I meant have it automatically fly like Curiosity. Set co-ordinates to the drone then when the weather, is good, the drone can fly to that location and do a routined maneuver then fly back.

a reply to: swanne

I just replied with a similar response about remote flying. There is technology out there that automatically senses weather conditions and so on which then adjusts ways the machine moves. The famous dog robot uses it best. Send the drone co-ordinates to where they want to scan, the drone would scan for any weather patterns by linking up with satellites and then fly there. Any complications should then be avoided by well engineered sensors.

originally posted by: smurfy
What I find strange is why there is no simple static camera/s situated in strategic areas to record visible ground or atmospheric changes, over a period.

That is strange. I've never actually thought about that. Maybe it's because NASA believe it to be a waste of money with the belief that Mars is just a lifeless wasteland. Or perhaps there's a better reason. I'd go with it being too expensive to just leave cameras in what could be useless spots on the planet.

originally posted by: jonwhite866
I was just in the space exploration section of ATS and saw someone talk about how it's a shame we can't travel to Mars and back quickly to get a Human eye on strange things. This made me think that the Rover isn't enough to scan the area. My knowledge in tech and space physics isn't the greatest so forgive me but I was wondering if it were possible to build an ariel drone that could attach to Curiosity, charge and then fly off every certain amount of hours and get a more flexible view of specific things on Mars.

I understand that Curiosity is already there and we're unable to build something to attach it to, but could the drone be done? If so, why hasn't it been done yet? Surely it's better for places like steep craters, crevasses, canyons and so on.

There are satelites in orbit which can take photographs with enough high resolution to read a book. It is strange that such pictures of interesting objects are nowhere to be found on the web.

I know this because the wheels of Curiosity have the letters JPL carved out in morsecode. The purpose for this is that a certain satelite can 'read' the distance travelled by Curiosity this way. Each cycle of the wheel will print JPL...

A drone would be nice for instant information but this satelite can look at any object in full detail.

Hard enough to land there once…

Air too thin, batteries too heavy, communication lag time too long.

a reply to: zatara

You make a good point. However satellites can't get EVERY angle of an object, especially if there's a cave. The drone would be used for all those non visible places that can't be captures by satellite or reached by Curiosity. Those are some of the uses I'd pitch anyway.

originally posted by: intrptr
Hard enough to land there once…

Air too thin, batteries too heavy, communication lag time too long.

All true but it's likely there will be some sort of atmospheric aerial craft at some stage for Mars,

Compared to Earth, the air is thinner at the surface (less than 1%) but the gravity is lower (less than 40%) Also, the major component of Mars air, CO2 gas, is denser than Earth air for a given pressure, so the heavier-than-air CO2 should offer resistance, and there is less gravity forcing an airframe downward.
The idea has been seriously considered, in 2000, for 2003, and then a few years ago but not used..so far. Here's a link to the 2000 plan.

www.airspacemag.com...

a reply to: smurfy

Thanks for the read. Even here, when a car goes dead it pulls over, when a plane goes dead…

Launch in November 2002 makes the development schedule tight, the budget (though not yet fixed) will be low, and no one has ever done such a thing before. Success will be a triumphant 20 minutes of data. Failure will be a far-off, unheard crash

Budget deflated…