Terrestrial UAV Off Earth

[Dan Daly]

The Mars TV show has The Astronauts using UAV's for recon. Can UAV's fly with the extremely thin atmosphere ? 

[Snark]

Certainly it would be a challenge, but it's not out of the question.  Certainly it's plausible enough that there have been serious  engineering studies for Mars-flyer missions.  Here's one, wouldn't be surprised if there have been others.

Have never seen the TV show you mention, so I have no clue whether the particular craft they're shown flying in the show would work or not.  But the basic principle of "fly, on Mars" is at least reasonably plausible.

[Jonfliesgoats]

They would require light UAV with large rotors and/or really high RPM.  Alternatives include using fixed wing UAV. I have only seen commercials for the program, but UAV are feasible even in the Martian atmosphere.  I seem to remember a proposal to fly a glider or UAV around mars somewhere.

https://www.nasa.gov/centers/armstrong/features/mars_airplane.html

Also, welcome to the legions of KSP nerds, Dan!

[Dan Daly]

The show is on National Geographic and the UAV's used do not seem to be anything you couldn't buy on Amazon. The story line flits from 2016 to 2037 with famous contemporary scientists offering info blurbs that are relevant to the action at hand. Some soap and contrived emergencies  are interspersed for dramatic effect. The UAV's caught my eye as being "not likely to be practical". Thanks for the erudite responses and welcome.

[YNM]

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

Quote

Mars: To see what happens to aircraft on Mars, we turn to X-Plane.

X-Plane is the most advanced flight simulator in the world. The product of 20 years of obsessive labor by a hardcore aeronautics enthusiast who uses capslock a lot when talking about planes, it actually simulates the flow of air over every piece of an aircraft’s body as it flies. This makes it a valuable research tool, since it can accurately simulate entirely new aircraft designs—and new environments.

In particular, if you change the X-Plane config file to reduce gravity, thin the atmosphere, and shrink the radius of the planet it can simulate flight on Mars. (Note: Thank you to Tom J and the folks in the X-Plane community for their help with aerodynamic calculations in different atmospheres.)

X-Plane tells us that flight on Mars is difficult, but not impossible. NASA knows this, and has considered surveying Mars by airplane. The tricky thing is that with so little atmosphere, to get any lift, you have to go fast. You need to approach Mach 1 just to get off the ground, and once you get moving, you have so much inertia that it’s hard to change course—if you turn, your plane rotates, but keeps moving in the original direction. The X-Plane author compared piloting Martian aircraft to flying a supersonic ocean liner.

Our Cessna 172 isn’t up to the challenge. Launched from 1 km, it doesn’t build up enough speed to pull out of a dive, and plows into the Martian terrain at over 60 m/s (135 mph). If dropped from four or five kilometers, it could gain enough speed to pull up into a glide—at over half the speed of sound. The landing would not be survivable.

Unluckily, the NASA reference seems to have been shut.

[Dan Daly]

Thank you for letting me know that my innocent skepticism when watching the Nat Geo TV presentation of a fictional Mars expedition was well founded. Maybe the producers of the next sci-fi show will take into account that Walmart quality drones will not fly (effectively)  in extra terrestrial atmospheric conditions that are not proximate to our own....Thanks again....Dan Daly

 

[SR]

a balloon might be more successful.

A balloon on Mars can lift approximately 1g/m3.

The Martian atmosphere also has a higher molecular mass than Earths atmosphere.

[Jonfliesgoats]

Balloons on Venus too.

[DDE]

http://spacenews.com/elachi-touts-helicopter-scout-for-mars-sample-caching-rover/