Design of flight test systems for an autonomous, balloon-launched demonstrator for a Mars exploration airplane

Abstract

Robotic airplanes have been proposed as a tool for surveying Mars. A Mars exploration airplane could bridge the scale and resolution gaps between orbiters and surface missions. Flight testing a prototype Mars airplane may be conducted at a very high altitude over the Earth, where the air density and temperature are representative of the conditions on Mars.

This research investigates the challenges of flight testing a Mars airplane prototype at high altitude and presents the design of a system and concept of operations that will deliver the required flight test data. The system transmits flight data to the ground via a wireless data link during the flight and records the data onboard the aircraft.

Subsystems that support the flight test system have been validated by tests on the ground and on high altitude balloons flights. Preliminary flight test data are presented to demonstrate the feasibility of this flight test operation.