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Talking Back
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"Several gliders makes it a more robust mission," says
Carlos Miralles. "If we lose one, too bad. All our eggs
aren't in one basket."
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In
fact, getting those eggs out of the baskets- that is, retrieving
the data from the planes- was another design issue engineers
grappled with and another reason multiple little gliders make
sense for this mission. Since it is too difficult to beam
all that data directly from the gliders back to Earth, the
Kitty Hawk glider team plans to use an orbiting satellite
as an intermediate relay station. This set-up leaves a 15-minute
window for each plane to upload its images - one reason the
Kitty Hawk team opted for multiple little gliders that remain
airborne for no more than 15 minutes.
"There's no reason for them to stay up longer," says Miralles.
"There wouldn't be anyone to talk to anyway."
Another
approach might have been to safeguard the data stored on each
glider and somehow retrieve it after landing - a riskier endeavor,
according to Miralles.
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| Artist's
conception of what images taken from the Kitty Hawk glider
might look like. |
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"The
safest bet is to get all the data off before the glider lands,"
he says. "At 100 meter per second, I'm using the term 'land'
rather loosely."
Additionally,
the Kitty Hawk gliders will use the satellite orbiter as a
kind of garage where the little planes lie in wait, neatly
folded up to conserve space. Embarking on its kamikaze plunge,
the glider is designed to elegantly unfold as it enters the
Martian atmosphere.
"It's
a simple, robust design," says geologist Wendy Calvin, the
project's science lead. "These are not Origami planes."
Each
weighing less than 20 pounds and measuring less than six feet
across, the gliders will reach extremely high speeds to generate
the lift necessary for their 15-minute flight. Equipped with
tiny cameras, the gliders can gather valuable data as they
zoom down the walls of Valles Marineris, up to four miles
deep in some places. By staggering the flights over many days
or even weeks, scientists will have the chance to analyze
the data before deciding how best to fly the next glider,
increasing the missions' overall efficiency even more.
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 Photos:
Carlos
Miralles/ JPL
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