2024-01-22 17:26:07
by Paolo Virtuani
An electric vertical take-off ultralight aircraft crucial for future explorations
It’s called Maggie (Mars Aerial and Ground Intelligent Explorer), a project for the creation of an aircraft suitable for searching for water deposits on Mars. Maggie obtained the first funding of 175 thousand dollars from Niac (Nasa Innovative Advanced Concepts), passing Phase I for innovative projects.
Water ice deposits
Finding and exploiting water deposits is a fundamental step for the future exploration of the Red Planet. The recent discovery, made with an Italian-built radar, of layers of water ice up to 3.7 kilometers thick below the surface in the equatorial areas of Mars is an important step. In addition to the ice deposits discovered in recent years in the Martian polar areas.
Features
Maggie is an ultra-light aircraft, with vertical take-off and landing (VTOL), powered by solar energy, capable of flying for almost 180 kilometers at a height of one thousand meters above the ground at a cruising speed of 0.25 Mach (equal to approximately 300 kilometers per hour) on one battery charge (which takes almost 8 Earth days to recharge). In one year Maggie can cover 16,050 kilometers. In addition to searching for ice, it would also fly instruments to study Mars’ weak magnetic field and traces of methane. Initial studies indicate that Maggie is a feasible project, but requires further investigation considering the particular conditions of the Martian atmosphere.
Ingenuity has resumed contact
Meanwhile, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) has resumed contact with the Ingenuity helicopter, which was lost last week after its 72nd flight. In the summer the small drone had already remained silent for 63 days, then the connections were reactivated with the Perseverance rover, both of which arrived on Mars in 2021. The Ingenuity mission was supposed to last a month for a total of five flights. JPL has admitted that it is currently unable to ensure that Ingenuity (which in English means “ingenuity” and not “ingenuit”) will fly again: More data is needed, reported in a message on X.
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January 22, 2024 (modified January 22, 2024 | 6:23 pm)
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