Conceptual Design of Mars Airplane

Abstract

The presence of an atmosphere on Mars signifies that an aircraft could travel in its atmosphere using the aerodynamic forces of flight. A reconnaissance aircraft offers the possibility to obtain high resolution data on a regional scale of several hundreds to thousands of kilometers, which cannot be achieved with rovers or satellites. However, conventional aircraft design cannot be applied for a Mars Airplane because of the nature of the Martian atmosphere and the constraints from transportation from Earth to Mars. This paper presents the conceptual design of a fixed-wing airplane for Mars, and the design rationale undertaken following the constraints set by the Martian environment. As a result, the main wing area was calculated to be 1.2 m 2. It was folded using two hinges to be packed into an aeroshell. The proposed Mars Airplane has four notches on its main wing. They make packing easier to keep the wing area maximized, making the Mars Airplane more compact.