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Design Considerations for a Mars Highland Helicopter Mars is sharply divided into the relatively low-lying northern hemisphere, filled with plains, to the higher-elevation, rugged, southern hemisphere. All landers sent so far to Mars have only landed on the plains of the northern hemisphere. Access to the Martian Highlands would present an opportunity to acquire unique insights into the early geologic history of Mars. But landing on the Martian highlands presents many engineering challenges. A new approach has recently been proposed to consider the use of mid-air deployment, during the final subsonic stages of entry, descent, and landing, of a small rotorcraft from the aeroshell. The rotorcraft would enter a powered descent state (rotors would be spun to full speed at moderate collectives) after aeroshell release until reaching a modest altitude above the ground where the vehicle would pullout to level flight. After completing this initial EDL mid-air-deployment and landing, the rotorcraft, which would be capable of solar-electric recharging, would recharge over the course of a few days until ready for subsequent flight sorties to explore the highlands. This overall vehicle/mission concept is called the Mars Highland Helicopter. The paper will next demonstrate that a key necessary condition – efficient hover and forward flight under the much thinner atmospheric conditions of the highlands (0.01 kg/m3 vs. 0.015 kg.m3 for the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Technology Demonstrator at Jezero Crater) – is indeed possible. This paper considers a number of EDL release/deployment strategies to minimize deployment aeroloads and maximize controllability during release from the EDL backshell. This mid-air-deployment discussion will be followed by a general analytical treatment of a Mars rotorcraft entering fully-powered descent and then forward flight cruise.
Document ID
20205008226
Acquisition Source
Ames Research Center
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Larry A. Young
(Ames Research Center Mountain View, California, United States)
Jeff Delaune
(Jet Propulsion Lab La Cañada Flintridge, California, United States)
Wayne Johnson
(Ames Research Center Mountain View, California, United States)
Shannah Withrow-Maser
(Ames Research Center Mountain View, California, United States)
Haley Cummings
(Ames Research Center Mountain View, California, United States)
Evgeniy Sklyanskiy
(Jet Propulsion Lab La Cañada Flintridge, California, United States)
Jacob Izraelevitz
(Jet Propulsion Lab La Cañada Flintridge, California, United States)
Aaron Schutte
(Jet Propulsion Lab La Cañada Flintridge, California, United States)
Abigail Fraeman
(Jet Propulsion Lab La Cañada Flintridge, California, United States)
Raghav Bhagwat
(The Ohio State University Columbus, Ohio, United States)
Date Acquired
September 30, 2020
Subject Category
Spacecraft Design, Testing And Performance
Meeting Information
Meeting: AIAA ASCEND
Location: Online
Country: US
Start Date: November 16, 2020
End Date: November 18, 2020
Sponsors: American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Funding Number(s)
WBS: 664817
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Use by or on behalf of the US Gov. Permitted.
Technical Review
NASA Peer Committee
Keywords
Mars Highland Helicopter
Design Considerations
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