MAI designs and develops remotely piloted vehicle that is to carry out research on Mars

Scientists of Moscow Aviation Institute are developing a drone that is to perform flights over Mars. The work is carried out by the experts of the Institute No. 1 "Aviation Technology" together with their colleagues from India.

– The idea was proposed by Jahid Gueresh, Associate Professor of the Department 101 "Aviation Design and Certification". It appeared after the first flight of the American helicopter “Ingenuity” over Mars, that opened a completely new era of the study of other planets, – says Elena Karpovich, the co-author of the project, senior lecturer of the Institute No. 1 "Aviation Technology". – In the summer of 2021 we applied for the grant from the Russian Science Foundation together with experts in computational hydroaerodynamics from the Haragpur University of Technology. We competed with more than 300 teams from Russia and India. 25 of them received approval, and we were among the lucky ones.

The unmanned aerial vehicle has a number of advantages if compared to the helicopter. The vehicle with a fixed wing might be equipped with a lighter power plant and therefore it might obtain larger carrying capacity and flight range.

Scientists calculated the vehicle of standard scheme with a power plant consisting of a propeller and an electric motor. It would be able to carry out one, but long lasting flight for about 8 hours and the range of about 1200-1400 km. The wingspan of the drone will be 3.2 m, and its mass is 4.3 kg. At the same time, the drone will be able to take about 1 kg of payload on board, and its cruising speed will be at least 42 m/s.

The scheme of the convertiplane is also considered. Such a device will be able to take off vertically and carry out several flights. For a convertiplane, a box-shaped wing scheme and a distributed power plant based on four small propellers for thrust and control might be effective. Tests of the box-wing weight model are already underway in a subsonic wind tunnel MAI.

The algorithm for launching a capsule with a drone in the atmosphere of Mars is still being elaborated.

"At the moment, I can provide only indicative data," says Elena Karpovich. – The rocket flies to the orbit of Mars, the capsule is released from the head fairing at an altitude of about 500 km above the surface and begins the descent. At an altitude of 120 km, the speed of the capsule is 21 thousand km/h!

The capsule descends to the altitude of about 11 km, where the system that releases brake parachutes is triggered. They reduce the speed of the capsule to 60 m/s, and our device slips out of it in a certain position.

Currently, the team is negotiating with a company that is engaged in testing various equipment in the stratosphere. At an altitude of 30 kilometers above the Earth, the density and pressure of the atmosphere are about the same as on the surface of Mars. Already at the end of 2024, scientists expect to test the demonstrator in conditions close to operational.

The study was carried out at the expense of the grant of the Russian Science Foundation No. 22-49-02047.