Planetary Airplane Extraction System Development and Subscale Testing

The Aerial Regional-scale Environmental Survey (ARES) project will employ an airplane as the science platform from which to collect science data in the previously inaccessible, thin atmosphere of Mars. In order for the airplane to arrive safely in the Martian atmosphere, a number of sequences must occur. A critical element in the entry sequence at Mars is an extraction maneuver to separate the airplane quickly (in less than a second) from its protective backshell to reduce the possibility of re-contact, potentially leading to mission failure. This paper describes the development, testing, and lessons learned from building a 1/3 scale model of this airplane extraction system. This design, based on the successful Mars Exploration Rover (MER) extraction mechanism, employs a series of trucks rolling along tracks located on the surface of the central parachute can. Numerous tests using high speed video were conducted at the Langley Research Center to validate this concept. One area of concern was that that although the airplane released cleanly, a pitching moment could be introduced. While targeted for a Mars mission, this concept will enable environmental surveys by aircraft in other planetary bodies with a sensible atmosphere such as Venus or Saturn's moon, Titan.