Drones in Space Exploration?

[Clockwork13]

Just had this thought.

Could it be practical to use drones in Space Exploration? As in, exploration planets that have an atmosphere. The biggest problem is obviously battery power and possibly time delay, but assuming you could make a drone that can recharge itself possibly with solar/nuclear power, you could in theory use drones effectively for space colonization and exploration.

The best example of this would be on Titan, since it has such a large atmosphere that isn't too extreme in terms of pressure. With Titan, you could put a solar/nuclear powered drone charging station somewhere. Then, just program the drone to fly around the area, take samples/photographs, etc. Also recharge the drone when needed. Even better would be if the drone were self sustaining using solar or nuclear power. A drone that would have the capabilities to do this would likely be far cheaper than a rover or maybe even a stationary lander, and maybe more effective as well, especially for researching the atmosphere in higher details.

Drones could also possibly be useful in terms of Mars colonization. The extremely thin atmosphere would cause a problem, but in theory, if a drone were to be developed that would be light and powerful enough to fly around a little bit on Mars, then you could Drones to quickly and effectively move things around. For example, say you have 2 separate Mars colonies. You could use drones to quickly and effectively transport supplies to and from the colonies. You could also possibly use drones to set up Mars colonies by moving components around. A notable problem for Mars would be dust possible getting inside the drone.

Drones could also be used to explore the upper atmospheres of some planets, particularly Venus and all of the gas giants. Obviously, going too far in any of these 5 planets would most likely destroy the drone, but in theory, you could make drones that fly around the upper atmospheres of planets like Jupiter (given the drone is well shielded against radiation) at an altitude where the pressure is similar to Earth at surface level. With a drone like this, you'd either need to have some sort of recharging station that can stay high enough in the atmosphere on its own or have the drone be self sufficient for a long enough period of time.

This is just a thought. It would be pretty cool if this ever were to happen, but please let me know what you guys think.

Edited June 15, 2017 by Clockwork13

[Starman4308]

Operation of a drone on Venus would be very difficult, because Venus. Either you have insane temperature and pressure, or sulfuric acid hurricanes.

Mars is likely a no go, unless maybe you have a large wingspan and a powerful engine, thanks to the very thin atmosphere.

The natives of Earth are fond of shooting down drones, so that's a bad idea too.

Jupiter's magnetic field and radiation would probably kill a drone before it returned much data.

Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, maybe with a full up fission reactor for power and heating. RTGs don't have the power density and you can forget solar.

Titan, you'd probably have to run some numbers to see if an RTG drone works. It has thick atmosphere and weak gravity, but not only is power a challenge, so is heating.

Edited June 16, 2017 by Starman4308

[KamenRiderzero1]

I'm thinking balloons might be the easier bet than a straight up plane or quadcopter. 

[Nuke]

you might be able to do a buoyancy glider for titan. every time the altitude gets too low inflate a couple balloons with hydrogen, rise to a high altitude and glide again.

 

same idea as this but for use in atmospheres instead of the ocean (perhaps space oceans).

Edited June 16, 2017 by Nuke

[NSEP]

I heard that the atmosphere is thick and the gravity is low enough that you can fly on Titan, just by flapping your arms. Or is the internet just fooling with us again.....

[Dafni]

57 minutes ago, NSEP said:

I heard that the atmosphere is thick and the gravity is low enough that you can fly on Titan, just by flapping your arms. Or is the internet just fooling with us again.....

Hmm, I doubt that to be true. For once, every upward flapping motion would give you just as much downward momentum as you would get upward momentum when you flap down, in effect giving you no net movement. Arms are not wings. Maybe when you would do swimming motions? But that illustrates the point of how thick the atmosphere and how low the gravity actually would need to be. I doubt those conditions are met on Titan, with its 0.14g of surface gravity and 1.45 atm pressure.

[magnemoe]

5 hours ago, KamenRiderzero1 said:

I'm thinking balloons might be the easier bet than a straight up plane or quadcopter. 

Was an idea for an balloon probe on Mars, fun part was that it would land every night as the balloon would cool down and you could do surface measurement. 

[kerbiloid]

10 minutes ago, Dafni said:

with its 0.14g of surface gravity and 1.45 atm pressure

In other words, if one could fly on Titan, astronauts could fly inside a lunar module just raising air pressure up to 1.x atm.

Btw there were Venusian balloons (Vega-1,2), floating at 50 km for 2 days.

Edited June 16, 2017 by kerbiloid

[tomf]

2 hours ago, NSEP said:

I heard that the atmosphere is thick and the gravity is low enough that you can fly on Titan, just by flapping your arms. Or is the internet just fooling with us again.....

I think you may be remembering this

https://xkcd.com/620/

Which is saying that we have enough power in our arms to sustain flight if we attached suitable wings to them, not that unaided arms will be enough.

Also in general for flying outside earth see this

https://what-if.xkcd.com/30/

If it won't work for the interplanetary Cessna then it is unlikely to work for a drone.

Edited June 16, 2017 by tomf

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, Dafni said:

Hmm, I doubt that to be true. For once, every upward flapping motion would give you just as much downward momentum as you would get upward momentum when you flap down, in effect giving you no net movement. Arms are not wings. Maybe when you would do swimming motions? But that illustrates the point of how thick the atmosphere and how low the gravity actually would need to be. I doubt those conditions are met on Titan, with its 0.14g of surface gravity and 1.45 atm pressure.

Fly with flapping your arms would obviously require wings like an wing suit but more advanced.
Its just theoretical anyway I think, Someone weighting 80 kg would just weight 14 on Moon this is the weight of the largest flying birds and our arms are stronger than their wings so equipped with wings we should be able to fly on moon, in an large domed city this would be very popular. 
On the other hand some has probably come up with an design who should work. 

 

[ARS]

Using flying drone on mars is probably a no-go since mars atmosphere is thin, not to mention dust storms that frequently occur on mars' surface. Remember, you cannot control drone using real time control like you did with RC drone on earth, at the distance of earth-mars, you can't joystick that thing. It's possible to make a drone flying on mars if it's light enough, but then it's highly vulnerable towards martian dust storms, even if it's landed, since it's light weight would make it easily swept away. Rovers have no problem though, since they are usually too heavy to be swept away

 

On venus, a land-based drone is a straight bad idea. Using balloon on the drone might be a good idea, since venus atmosphere mainly consist of carbon dioxide, it's easy to make a balloon that float above certain height using the gas lighter than that, the problem is how to control the drone's heading. I don't know if there's a way to control balloon on venus atmosphere, perhaps using a series of propeller? I don't know

 

About Titan drones, the main problem is power source. Titan only receive 1% of sunlight compared to earth, and even then, the light is filtered by titan's thick atmosphere, leaving only 0.1% of it reaching the surface, so a solar panel is not an optimal power source here. RTGs might work, but then it depends how powerful it is to power the drone for an extended amount of time while keeping drone's weight light enough to sustain flight

[Racescort666]

2 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Fly with flapping your arms would obviously require wings like an wing suit but more advanced.
Its just theoretical anyway I think, Someone weighting 80 kg would just weight 14 on Moon this is the weight of the largest flying birds and our arms are stronger than their wings so equipped with wings we should be able to fly on moon, in an large domed city this would be very popular. 
On the other hand some has probably come up with an design who should work. 

 

Like this?

Spoiler

 

Also, as far as aircraft on Mars, NASA is studying it: https://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/research/technology-onepagers/mars-airplane.html And has built test prototypes: https://www.nasa.gov/centers/armstrong/features/prandtl-m_flights_resume.html So I would say that Mars drone aircraft are not out of the question but it's probably not exactly what you were thinking.

 

[wumpus]

4 hours ago, tomf said:

I think you may be remembering this
https://what-if.xkcd.com/30/
If it won't work for the interplanetary Cessna then it is unlikely to work for a drone.

I'm guessing Mars would be an exception.  Your drone wouldn't look at all like a Cessna, it would strongly resemble a glider or U2 (although probably a propeller-powered glider, not jet powered).  Packaging such a beast for the trip sounds like the fun part (especially since you have to unpack it at ~mach 1 during descent).  I think this came up in the "circular runways" thread: I suggested that Mars would be the obvious place for a circular runway (Randal Monroe says mach 1 takeoff speed) to handle the craziness of Mars launch/land.

Maybe Mars isn't any more possible (you try unfurling glider-sized/shaped wings during orbital descent).

[Canopus]

Nasa is actually considering a small coaxial helicopter as a navigation aid to the Mars 2020 Rover.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4457

Edited June 16, 2017 by Canopus

[Clockwork13]

15 hours ago, NSEP said:

I heard that the atmosphere is thick and the gravity is low enough that you can fly on Titan, just by flapping your arms. Or is the internet just fooling with us again.....

I heard that you could strap cardboard panels or something similar and be able to fly.

I don't see how human arms on their own would do much though

[NSEP]

9 hours ago, Clockwork13 said:

I heard that you could strap cardboard panels or something similar and be able to fly.

I don't see how human arms on their own would do much though

Yeah, i forgot to point that out.

[Skylon]

What fraction of Titan's mass is it's atmosphere?

[magnemoe]

17 hours ago, Canopus said:

Nasa is actually considering a small coaxial helicopter as a navigation aid to the Mars 2020 Rover.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4457

Interesting and it makes sense, wonder how it will be charged? 
Will the rover transport the drone or just charge it, this will add more weight then just charging but is a bit more flexible. 
Drone would obviously fly an preset route, it takes lots of pictures who is sent to rover and then back to earth. 
Benefit is that its easier to plot an track for rover and you can scout for interesting things for rover to study. 

[Canopus]

7 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

Interesting and it makes sense, wonder how it will be charged? 
Will the rover transport the drone or just charge it, this will add more weight then just charging but is a bit more flexible. 
Drone would obviously fly an preset route, it takes lots of pictures who is sent to rover and then back to earth. 
Benefit is that its easier to plot an track for rover and you can scout for interesting things for rover to study. 

It is supposed to fly for 3 minutes a day and charge itself using a solar cell. I don't think it is supposed to reconnect with the rover.

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, Canopus said:

It is supposed to fly for 3 minutes a day and charge itself using a solar cell. I don't think it is supposed to reconnect with the rover.

did not notice the solar panel the first time, having it independent is much better. 3 minutes / day would be enough to assist an rover. I assume it will fly an preset and pretty ballistic trajectory 
 

[_Augustus_]

On 6/17/2017 at 5:42 AM, Canopus said:

It is supposed to fly for 3 minutes a day

I honestly question the utility of a 3 minute flight per day, considering that it would cost millions of $.

[Starman4308]

13 minutes ago, _Augustus_ said:

I honestly question the utility of a 3 minute flight per day, considering that it would cost millions of $.

I think the point is to have it map out the surrounding terrain to help the parent rover navigate, and with how slowly unmanned rovers go, a 3-minute hop is more than enough for that purpose.

[YNM]

On 6/16/2017 at 11:19 PM, Canopus said:

Nasa is actually considering a small coaxial helicopter as a navigation aid to the Mars 2020 Rover.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4457

Wait, you need to go supersonic just to fly on Mars... how in the hell the blades are going to work ?

[kerbiloid]

On 16.06.2017 at 7:19 PM, Canopus said:

Nasa is actually considering a small coaxial helicopter as a navigation aid to the Mars 2020 Rover.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4457

Looks pathetic. AMEE robo-dog with coaxial copter rules!

Spoiler

(from Red Planet, 2000)

Upd.: (This backpack thing is the drone. It gets vertical, starts rotating, releases strips with weights which become blades, then disconnects and flies around, providing the robo-dog with aerial view)

Upd.2. So, a local drone on a rover carrier.

Edited June 29, 2017 by kerbiloid

[RCgothic]

4 hours ago, YNM said:

Wait, you need to go supersonic just to fly on Mars... how in the hell the blades are going to work ?

Lift is a function of both wing area and velocity. A Cessna needs to go supersonic. Something built like a U2 would not.