NASA scientists recently announced the agency has begun prototyping a boomerang-shaped plane projected to make the first flight on Mars at some point between 2022 and 2024.
“We’re going to build some vehicles and we are going to put them in very unusual [environments] and see if they will recover where other aircraft would not,” said Al Bowers, NASA Armstrong chief scientist and the Preliminary Research Aerodynamic Design to Land on Mars (Prandtl-m) program manager. “Our expectation is that they will recover. As soon as we get that information, we will feel much better flying it from a high-altitude balloon.”
The main reason Bowers is confident they will recover is because the drone will be made from composites – either fiberglass or carbon fiber.
“We believe this particular design could best recover from the unusual conditions of an ejection,” said Bowers.
