LILI (Long-term Ice-field Levitating Investigator): A Mars Aerial and Ground Explorer for Glaciers and Polar Ice Fields

The recent discovery of glacier remains in Noctis Labyrinthus, the “Maze of the Night” near Mars’ equator sheds new light on the history of water on Mars, the evolution of the planet’s climate and geology, and the possibility of life. It also opens the possibility for massive amounts of clean glacier ice to be accessed by astronauts at low latitudes on Mars, alleviating the need to operate in more frigid higher latitudes. Further reconnaissance of the site requires a robotic vehicle capable of traversing rough, salt-crusted glacier surfaces and leaping across crevasse fields. To address this need, we propose a conceptual hybrid aerial/ground vehicle, LILI (Long-term Ice-field Levitating Investigator). LILI combines episodic rotary-wing flight with ground mobility as a propeller-driven sled through an arrangement of skis/runners, wheels, and tilting proprotors. A high-level look at the Noctis Labyrinthus “relict glacier” site is presented, along with a notional LILI mission traverse concept designed to ensure critical scientific measurements are captured. The NASA Design and Analysis of Rotorcraft (NDARC) software is utilized to ensure that mission requirements and sizing constraints are met. Furthermore, future work considers guidance, navigation, and control requirements to satisfy mission objectives, and an initial construction for a simplified LILI small-scale prototype.