Curiosity , the intrepid Mars rover , has been shuffle along the surface of the fourth planet from the sunlight since 2012 . Being a Mars rover is solitary work , but scientists are working firmly to charge over some robot champion in the future . so as to land any new robo - buddies safely , a collaboration of scientists has developed an modern robot hang sailplane image : MARSDROP .
The scientist behind the idea isRebecca Williamsof thePlanetary Science Institute(PSI ) . To get the parachute idea off the ground ( and drift in the air ) she join forces with Matthew Eby of theAerospace Corporationand a squad of engineers at NASA’sJet Propulsion Laboratory .
If deployed aright and at the right time , the Mars parawing should prevent any smash landing place . The parawing will deploy 6.5 klick above the Earth’s surface of Mars . This will help the heltering investigation to slow down from 7,000 meter per second to under 7.5 meters per second . The whole process should take about ten minutes .
Landing on Mars is no bastardly feat and there are various challenge to for which to account when attempting touchdown . The ambiance is flimsy than on Earth , so there is less friction against the motion of a landing place probe . The British - built Beagle 2 investigation may have fall victim to this : on Christmas Day in 2003,the craftcrash landed on Mars instead of bouncing on its airbags . afterward analysispostulated that the abject atmospheric tightness on Mars may have activate the parachute and airbags too lately .
Curiosity whelm this challenge : it was lowered onto the surface of the " crimson satellite " on cables . The letting down was perfomed by arocket - powered sky crane . It was for sure a nail - burn experience for the scientists involved ; this was the first time such a maneuver had ever been attempted on another planet .
But a sky crane is proabably not the most monetary value - efficacious or stress - free landing assistant . In contrast , the cost of the parawing is estimate to impart only 5 % to that of current Mars missions , making it a relatively cheap project . " MARSDROP is a cost - effective way of life to three-fold or treble the number of Mars landers for each mission opportunity , " PSI representativeswrotein a mission description .
The grand plan is to finally send a carrier cunning to Mars . Two adventurous microprobes would be released from the craft and would utilize MARSDROP parawings to glide safely to the planet ’s surface . The microprobes ' modest sizes would allow them to hop to places that the large rover , Curiosity , is too cumbersome to reach . These include volcanic region , canyons and glaciers , for illustration . The prospect of landing in new , unexplored regions makes this projection notably exciting .
If this first paradigm is successful then similar mission could be made to land probe on the surface of planets with atmosphere thick than that of Mars ; troubled Venus , for case , or Saturn ’s moon Titan .
Schematic of the MARSDROP landing succession via Planetary Science Institute by Matthew Eby
[ ViaPSI , SpaceNews , AstroNews ]
