The Mars Aerial Navigation Terrain and Atmosphere (MANTA) Explorer

Over the last half century, Martian exploration has continuously uncovered answers to some of our longest held questions about both our solar system and the Red Planet. With the completion of the Ingenuity mission in January 2024, a new era of planetary science has begun, one centered around aerial exploration. Rovers and orbiters have dominated the last two decades of Mars missions and have yielded unprecedented findings, but they have created a gap between the detailed-oriented nature of terrestrial exploration and the broader, planetary-wide research being conducted from orbit. For these reasons, the Mars Aerial Navigation Terrain & Atmosphere (MANTA) Explorer is proposed as a mission concept to explore large portions of the planet from the atmosphere while collecting invaluable, detailed geological, atmospheric, and technical information about Mars. Through simulations and 3D modeling, the feasibility of the aircraft in this environment was tested while considering the scientific objectives of the mission. From these results, the MANTA Explorer was developed to be a versatile, fixed-wing aircraft with vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) capabilities that would allow it to travel and land in diverse and hard to reach locations. Alongside these technical aspects, advanced artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) applications for flight planning, obstacle avoidance, and VTOL will be at the heart of this mission. Scientific and navigational sensors will be employed to further investigate the unique geology of the planet while mapping its terrain in extreme detail and probing for potential locations of subterranean or frozen water. MANTA ultimately aims to deepen our understanding of the Red Planet while demonstrating the technical applications of fixed-wing flight and AI/ML in extraterrestrial exploration.