2001-08-21 | MISSIONS, TECHNOLOGIES
Mars Airplane Prototype Completes Test Flight

A NASA prototype of an airplane that someday may fly over Mars successfully completed a high-altitude flight test August 9. The NASA glider was towed by a helium-filled balloon to an altitude of 103,000 feet—the edge of space—and released. At that height, the thin air resembles the tenuous atmosphere of Mars. Engineers and scientists hailed the test as a great success. The aircraft's future configuration must be able to fold up in order to fit inside a spacecraft. It is expected to have its own propeller propulsion system capable of operating in the Mars atmosphere, which consists mostly of carbon dioxide. It will also carry a variety of sophisticated instruments to observe and conduct science experiments. "I’m sure you will find instruments on board that are designed to find signs of water on Mars, which is necessary for life," said NASA's Larry Lemke, project manager for advanced Mars mobility concepts, which include airplanes as well as other systems. "In addition, we would have a large array of cameras on the airplane to be able to see large areas of the Mars terrain in very high resolution," Lemke said. He said the cameras aboard the aircraft would be so precise, they could see objects on Mars as small as the size of a quarter. The search for evidence of past or present life on Mars is a major objective of astrobiology.

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