back to article European Space Agency demos MARS LANDINGS BY DRONE

The European Space Agency has used an off-the-shelf quadcopter to demonstrate the latest output of its StarTiger rapid-development program: precision guidance and safe delivery of a rover-like vehicle onto a simulated Mars surface. Getting to Mars is one thing, but as the ESA knows only too well, executing a successful landing …

  1. Kharkov
    Happy

    Progress!

    Well it's nice to see ESA developing the control systems for an eventual Mars landing system... but I'm curious.

    Is the software/control system used in the Curiousity landing proprietry information? Why are different agencies (apparently) rediscovering the wheel? Why not share the software/hardware? Yes, you run the risk of the Russians/Chinese/Evildoers Inc getting their hands on it but why worry? Without a fairly big rocket to get your package to Mars, it's not exactly critical information is it?

    Now we need to do the same thing again, this time with rockets...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Progress!

      Pardon me, but if I was employed in a mobile attack unit protecting our extraction of cheap minerals from other people's fields I would very much like to think my quietly accurate placement of an explosive charge from a drone up against my target's bunker wall was not taking place while he was doing the same to me! And let's face it, everybody knows that the most awesome security and secrecy systems are run by the US. Believing that, as an American, would you risk sharing any of your secrets (that you think they don't already know) with any manky European country?

  2. Gene Cash Silver badge

    Project Morpheus &ALHAT

    NASA is doing the same thing, but is a bit more serious about it. They're developing a guidance system to do a vertical landing into an area with a ton of rocks, automatically, without landing on any of the rocks. That's called "Autonomous Landing and Hazard Avoidance Technology"

    Morpheus was the first NASA project to use liquid methane as rocket fuel, instead of kerosene/liquid hydrogen/etc.

    It crashed once, but they put it back together and kept going, because Congress doesn't really know about it.

    http://morpheuslander.jsc.nasa.gov/

  3. Martin Budden Silver badge
    Trollface

    I wonder how many takes they did before they got a shot of the lander missing the rocks?

    (Just kidding, hence the icon. Well done ESA!)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Beardy boffins on the team guarantee success; it's the mutton-chopped variety that's trouble.

  4. Jos

    Erm...

    "The 'copter's approach was handled by GPS and..."

    How important is the GPS part here? I'm not entirely sure Mars has enough GPS satellites in orbit yet...

    I guess it's more a proof of concept targeted mostly at the visual landing location finder...

    Well done though ESA!

  5. Vulch
    Boffin

    Rotors v. Rockets

    For an actual Mars landing you'd use Rockets instead of Rotors. ElReg SPB already has experience of things like ArduPilot which can handle a wide variety of motors in its quadcopter guise, rotors to rockets might be a bit beyond the usual parameters that need tweaking but not hugely so. They can also use a wide variety of positioning systems, get a fix from existing Mars probes on the way in and an inertial system will get you close enough to your desired boulder-strewn landing spot.

  6. Graham Marsden
    Alien

    Dropship?

    "We're on an express elevator to Hell. GOING DOWN!"

  7. Bronek Kozicki
    Boffin

    small issue of air density

    This experiment is not going to deliver most robust results, as far as drone flight is concerned. They would have to repeat it under atmospheric conditions similar to Mars - that is air pressure 0.6% of Earth's at sea level. It will be very challenging to generate enough lift from reasonably sized rotary wing aircraft (e.g. drone) in such conditions.

    My guess is that they were actually testing dropping rover on a surface using sky crane, not actual drone (to which rover was attached). It's just so much cheaper to use drone rather than rocket engines.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: small issue of air density

      Just an idle thought... arising from Dysan, of domestic appliance compact rotary air moving fame, having recently filed yet another patent involving very high speed turbine rotor construction and design such as might be applicable to kinetic energy storage.

      If your drone entered Mars atmosphere with a fully-powered rotary 'battery' (charged from collecting solar energy on the long voyage to Mars) could it deliver enough lift, even in a thin atmosphere, through gearing it to a bunch of very high-speed atmospheric rotors? Perhaps it would be best if the turbines themselves were also of Dysan design?

      .. after landing you could put the turbine into reverse, 'vacuum up' some dust... as Dysan does, hang around a few months while you spin up the rotary battery again from solar power, while also electrolysing some rocket fuel out of the sub-surface moisture. Then return to earth orbit for collection... after an aerodynamic lift-off to the altitude ceiling followed by rocket power to get escape velocity and an Ion engine to get home.

      Simples?? Who said space was difficult? All it takes is a modified vacuum cleaner.

      1. Flocke Kroes Silver badge

        Re: small issue of air density

        The fun thing with Dyson patents is to look at some history. A century or so ago, vortex separation was used in coal mines. Over three decades ago vortex separation was used in bus exhausts to reduce particulate emissions. There was a vortex separator at a sawmill where I worked long before Dyson invented the vacuum cleaner. Like everyone else involved in technology, I do not look at patents because they are obfuscated, obvious, describe antiquated tech badly and looking at a patent means triple damages for wilful infringement (and expensive nuisance litigation if you do something similar but non-infringing). So without looking at Dyson's patents:

        Flywheel energy storage has been around for decades. The big advantage is the rapid discharge time, so to obvious uses are things like throwing aircraft off a carrier or powering a data centre for the few seconds between a power cut and the generators starting. There was a big step up in capacity per kilogram when people switched to composite materials. In 2004, NASA built one that could store 16kJ/kg. For comparison, super capacitors store 36kJ/kg, Lithium ion battery: 1800kJ/kg. Ham and cheese sandwich: 10130kJ/kg. The popular energy storage for a Mars rocket is Methane+Liquid oxygen which you can make from Mars's atmosphere if you bring a nuclear reactor and your own hydrogen. The resulting energy density compares well to a ham and cheese sandwich, so over 600 times better than a flywheel storage device built with an astronomical budget; eg: launch costs per kilo swamp the costs of expensive materials and expensive manufacturing processes.

        If you are going to try flywheel storage for a Mars landing, the time to charge up your propeller is after you have slowed down enough that the propeller will not get vaporised by friction with the atmosphere, but while you still have enough speed and altitude for autorotation.

        If Dyson were involved in space travel, I expect he would patent what other people are doing now and sue them when they start to make a profit.

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