Category Archives: Mars

Taking Flight on Mars

Sometime soon, we will all get to witness the first Mars flight by an aircraft. That may even happen later this week. What’s going to happen? The Ingenuity mini-helicopter, sent to the Red Planet aboard the Mars Perseverance rover, is getting ready to fly. It’ll be the first aircraft ever to do so.

The Ingenuity chopper on the surface of Mars, ready to take flight.
The Ingenuity helicopter deployed on Mars, as seen through the Perseverance camera.
This is a technology demonstrator that will be used to assess the use of other aircraft and
rotorcraft on the Red Planet in the future. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

It has already taken its first picture of the ground (below), as a prelude to the imaging it will do in flight. Early flights will be short hops. Eventually, mission scientists hope to use it to do some ‘scouting ahead’ on the terrain. That will allow the rover to pursue long-term trips across the surface. The ultimate goal of the mission includes the search for clues to past (and maybe present) life and the existence of water on the Red Planet.

Mars Flight is No Longer a Dream

Aircraft on Mars are not a new idea. In fact, people have been talking about having planes on the Red Planet since the beginning of the last century. Most of the early ideas seem like science fiction. The technology to achieve them really didn’t exist until mid-century. And, in fact, it took until the Perseverance rover for planners to include a little helicopter as part of the “baggage.”

But, the ideas were there. Back in the 1980s, during a series of workshops called “The Case for Mars” meetings, scientists had high hopes for Mars aircraft. I remember hearing a talk about Mars aircraft that mentioned some concepts that Werner von Braun put forth. He felt that Mars explorers would need aircraft, which makes perfect sense. But, first, we had to get to Mars, which (for von Braun) was in the very distant future).

Plans for Mars Flight

For long-duration missions, particularly with human presence, being able to fly over the surface for reconnaissance and exploration is important, as von Braun’s idea suggested. However, at the time he was first suggesting such flights, people didn’t have a good sense of the Martian atmosphere. Before the Mariner IV mission, people had assumed that Mars and Earth had similar conditions. By the mid-20th Century, that view changed as spacecraft data came in showing that the Mars atmosphere was mostly carbon dioxide with a little nitrogen and argon. The Martian atmosphere is also incredibly thin. You’d have to travel about 20 miles above Earth’s surface to get to a “typical” Mars-type atmospheric density. That incredibly thin atmosphere would make a big difference to an aircraft built to fly in the regions of Earth’s thicker atmosphere where aircraft typically go.

Fixed-wing Mars Flight Ideas

To fly on Mars, then, requires an aircraft that can take advantage of what little atmosphere there is on the planet. At the Case for Mars meetings, we talked about those aircraft, and even sketched out some glider-type designs that could utilize the atmosphere. NASA has also looked at concepts for Mars planes. One of the first that I remember seeing plans for was the ARES (Aerial Regional-scale Environmenntal Survey) plane. It was proposed and prototyped at NASA Langley, and was supposed to be a rocket-powered lifting body that would carry instruments to study the atmosphere, surface, sub-surface, and magnetic field conditions on Mars.

An early concept for a glider on Mars, the Ares craft.
A concept image of the once-proposed ARES glider soaring over Mars. Courtesy NASA.

Unfortunately, ARES wasn’t chosen as a mission, but its concepts were sound. Over the years, a number of fixed-wing aircraft ideas have been floated for Mars exploration. I particularly liked the Daedalus concept (which also didn’t get too far beyond the planning stage). It was a glider that had a range of several hundred kilometers on Mars. Its prime mission target would have been Coprates Chasma canyon region.

Rotors on Mars

Fixed-wing craft (whether powered or gliders) are still on the drawing boards for Mars exploration. At the moment, many challenges remain: first you have to get the aircraft to Mars. Next, you have to figure out how to get the propellant there with it, and send along enough to achieve all the scientific objectives. Then, there are the issues of command and control, although with modern artificial-intelligence-driven drones and aircraft here on Earth, that’s maybe not so much of an issue any more. But, the exploration challenges remain: once you get your aircraft on Mars, operating it for long periods of time and getting the science are all dependent on having a good idea of the flight conditions. Sure, we know the atmospheric density, chemical composition, wind speeds, etc. But, we haven’t flown anything there yet that can take off and land repeatedly.

Ingenuity on Mars

So, what kind of aircraft can do that in these early days? This is where Ingenuity comes in. It was engineered to handle the atmospheric density, and can fly over quite a bit of terrain multiple times. That’s a big step forward in exploration.

The Ingenuity “chopper” gets its “juice” from batteries that are recharged by a solar panel. It is capable of repeated 90-second-long flights away from its liftoff site and then back again. Its maximum altitude will be about five meters and it can travel about 50 meters at a time and then come back. It will send all of its data back through Perseverance. It’s a great technology demonstrator that will allow mission planners to learn more about the mechanics of flight in Mars conditions.

A New Era of Mars Flight

Eventually, there will be piloted aircraft on Mars, but having pilots requires having human crews on the surface. And, we’re not there yet. It could be another decade (or maybe less) before people set foot on the Red Planet. Until they do, it’s not a bad idea to “practice, practice, practice” using robotic and AI-guided aircraft. And, that’s why we have Ingenuity getting ready for her maiden flight.

Mars Water Sources Are Underground

A bunch of years ago, I wrote a documentary for fulldome called MarsQuest. In it, our audiences explored the past, present, and future exploration of Mars. Over the years, I’ve watched many missions go to Mars, following the progression we imagined in our show. First, robotic explorers. Then, if all goes well, we send people to Mars to give it a close-up human touch.

Today, we’re at the stage of planning the first crewed missions to Mars. Right now, we’re using robotic probes and we’ve sent many of them. Joining them this week are the Hope mission, the Tianwen-1 mission, and the Perseverance lander with its tiny helicopter.

Exploration of Mars

Mars exploration
Imagine the first Mars explorers setting foot on its rusty, sandy surface! Courtesy NASA/JPL


Of course, people have already explored Mars in a limited way. And, we’ve always dreamed of walking its surface. But, dreams of exploration are only a first step. Unlike the explorers of old who circumnavigated Earth, people going to Mars will prepare for a most alien place. That complicates the exploration of the Red Planet quite a bit.

Humans Need Mars Water

What is the most important thing that Mars explorers are going to need? Obviously, air to breathe is one resource. So is water. The exploration of Mars has continually focused on looking for sources of water across the planet. As we all know, the surface has NO flowing water and likely hasn’t for billions of years. However, that doesn’t mean water doesn’t exist there. The upcoming missions to Mars arriving this week all will continue the search for resources, including water.

Yet, we DO know that Mars has water. That’s thanks to the spacecraft that are already “in situ” and have explored in the past. For example, the first images of Mars from the Mariners showed river beds and flood plains. Every imaging mission since that time has shown tantalizing hints of water across the planet, including the ice caps. Other missions have “sensed” the planet using radar and other instruments, looking for the chemical indications of water.

Combing the Mars Data for Water

Today, data from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mars Odyssey, and Mars Global Surveyor missions are contributing to the mapping of water on Mars. In particular, they are chartingthe amounts of ice that we can’t see, but are buried underground.

Planetary Science institute scientist Gareth Morgan leads a team that is analyzing that data. They’re using new data-processing techniques to assess the possibilities for hidden water ice on Mars. Their system is called “Subsurface Water Ice Mapping” (SWIM). It provides maps of places around the globe that could harbor icy reserves. The science team is doing radar analysis of the surface features, which tells them something about how the features formed. They’re also using radar data to peer beneath the surface, and mapping periglacial features that indicate the presence of ice. All of these, plus several other techniques, combine to give a much clearer view of subsurface ice on Mars. All of this information will help future mission planners find the best places to land people on the planet.

Of course, water is important for sustaining life, but it’s useful in a variety of other ways. According to Morgan, the goal of his project is to provide maps of potential buried ice deposits. Such maps can support the selection of human landing sites. “The ice is a critical resource that has many uses, like the generation of water for human consumption, growing plants for food, and for the generation of methane fuel and breathable air,” he says. But the most important is to provide fuel for the return trip home to Earth. “Taking all the fuel you need for the round trip to Mars is basically not feasible. As a result, pretty much every mission concept study from the last 30 years considers exploiting the Martian environment for fuel.”

Mars: The Icy Planet

Despite the fact that it looks like a desert, Mars is actually quite an icy place, especially if you consider all the buried ice. So, it seems simple to just land near where the ice is. It may not be that easy to locate a good landing site that is also near embedded ice deposits. That’s why Morgan and the team are reassessing all the data, to locate all the icy reserves across Mars. It also matters how deeply the ice is buried. Deposits that are close to the surface are obviously going to be easier to “mine” than those deeper down. The current data sets show ice buried as shallow as a centimeter and as deep as a kilometer.

Using ice on Mars as a water resource is not a new idea. Of course, mission planners have to consider a lot of other factors when sending people to the Red Planet. Landing site safety (i.e. is the place free of giant rock piles, landslides, etc.), as well as solar and thermal specifications, have to be considered. But, finding stores of water ice is the first challenge for the crewed missions of the future. Giving them all the water they can use for life support as well as transport is important.

The next few missions to Mars: Hope (from the United Arab Emirates), Tianwen-1 (China), Perseverance (NASA-USA), will also focus on the search for water, among their other goals. This tells you how important water is — it’s the stuff of life, no matter where we go in the solar system. Understanding its history and existence on Mars is an important step toward eventual human exploration of the Red Planet.