Latest news with #IngenuityMars
Yahoo
28-02-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Chinese scientists developing Mars drone that can roll and fly across Red Planet (video)
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. A Chinese research team is developing a lightweight robotic drone with a targeted special mission scenario of Mars exploration. The air-ground dual-purpose unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) weighs only 10.6 ounces (300 grams), equivalent to the weight of an apple. The development team is at the School of Astronautics (SoA) of the Harbin Institute of Technology. Seen as showing promising potential in future Mars science work, the UAV can take off at any time, traverse obstacles, and boasts superb endurance, reports state-owned China Central Television (CCTV). "On the ground, it mainly rolls by shifting its center of gravity," said Zhu Yimin, a Ph.D candidate at SoA. "In the air, it relies on a pair of contra-rotating coaxial rotors, controlled by a steering engine to adjust the forward direction, to control torque and force, ultimately achieving stable flight," Zhu told CCTV. Related: Will China return Mars samples to Earth before the US does? The UAV work entails multiple models of air-ground dual-mode robots with different configurations, CCTV reports. These robots move by rolling close to the ground, which reduces energy consumption, and can achieve a flight endurance time of more than six times that of traditional drones of the same size. According to Zhang Lixian, a professor within the SoA, the hope is that the aerial vehicle can show off its long endurance and observational abilities on Mars. "Our second goal is for such machines to be suitable for construction in many underground spaces and for exploring unknown underground spaces. We also need robotic means for inspection and environmental detection. We have now materialized all these functions," said Zhang. RELATED STORIES: — How NASA's Ingenuity helicopter opened the Mars skies to exploration — China moves Mars sample-return launch up 2 years, to 2028 — The moon, Mars, asteroids and Jupiter: China reveals ambitious space exploration plans The Chinese aerial drone work is taking a different approach than NASA's Ingenuity Mars helicopter. That history-making autonomous aircraft operated for nearly three years of flight on Mars, making 72 flights within Jezero Crater. Dispatched by NASA's Perseverance rover, Ingenuity weighed 4 pounds on Earth (1.81 kilograms), which is equivalent to 1.5 pounds (0.68 kg) on Mars. Ingenuity first lifted off the Martian surface on April 19, 2021 and made its last flight on Jan. 18, 2024. On Flight 72, rotor blades on the craft were damaged during landing, permanently grounding the vehicle. As the first aircraft on another world, Ingenuity flew more than 14 times farther than planned while logging more than two hours of total flight time. For a video look at the potential Mars craft being developed by China, go here.
Yahoo
29-01-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Tiny tube experiments simulate solar system's only moon with an atmosphere
Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) has partnered with the Carnegie Institution for Science to perform laboratory experiments that recreate the conditions of Saturn's moon Titan in a tiny vial. The experiments corroborate an existing theory regarding the way Titan maintains its dense atmosphere. The scientific community has taken a particular interest in Titan due to the fact it may have once harbored microbial extraterrestrial life. It is also the only moon in our solar system that has a significant atmosphere. For the SwRI and Carnegie experiments, the scientists set out to better understand how Titan maintains its thick nitrogen-rich atmosphere. The team published their findings in a paper in the journal Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta. Titan, the second-largest moon in our solar system after Jupiter's Ganymede, has a denser atmosphere than Earth. Ever since it was first discovered in 1944, scientists have pondered and investigated the evolution of Titan's atmosphere. 'While just 40 percent the diameter of the Earth, Titan has an atmosphere 1.5 times as dense as the Earth's, even with a lower gravity,' SwRI's Dr. Kelly Miller, lead author of the paper, explained in a press statement. 'Walking on the surface of Titan would feel a bit like scuba diving.' Unsurprisingly, humans wouldn't be able to survive on the surface of Titan, despite the fact it has an atmosphere. That dense lunar atmosphere is made up of approximately 95 percent nitrogen and 5 percent methane. 'The presence of methane is critical to the existence of Titan's atmosphere,' Miller continued. 'The methane is removed by reactions caused by sunlight and would disappear in about 30 million years after which the atmosphere would freeze onto the surface. Scientists think an internal source must replenish the methane, or else the atmosphere has a geologically short lifetime.' Miller was also lead author for a 2019 paper published in the Astrophysical Journal that proposed a theoretical model for the replenishment of Titan's atmosphere. In it, Miller and a team of scientists theorized that organic materials are heated up in Titan's rocky interior. These would then release nitrogen and methane, which seeps out at the surface, forming the moon's thick atmosphere. In their new experiments, Miller and his team corroborated this theory by simulating the conditions of Titan's interior in small vials. To do this, they heated organic materials within the vials to temperatures of 482 to 932 degree Fahrenheit (250 to 500°C) at pressures of up to 10 kilobars. As expected, these experiments produced carbon gases like carbon dioxide and methane. They did so in sufficient quantities to be able to supply Titan's atmospheric reservoir. Of course, there is a lot the scientific community doesn't yet know about Titan. NASA will send a probe called Dragonfly to the Saturn moon in the year 2028. The Dragonfly mission will include a quadcopter influenced by the US space agency's Ingenuity Mars helicopter. The chopper will explore and investigate Titan's atmosphere, beaming a wealth of new data back to Earth. Scientists hope they will be able to use this new information to determine whether Saturn's moon once had habitable conditions.
