The Mars Aerobot Validation Program (MABVAP) was initiated in August 1997 to develop and validate key technologies needed for aerobot missions on Mars. The major elements of the program are the development of balloons for flight on Mars, robust techniques for deployment and inflation and modeling and simulation of balloon flight paths, selection, development and tests of available balloon materials, design and fabrication of balloons (both superpressure and solar-heated), design and fabrication of deployment and inflation systems for aerial deployment, design and fabrication of avionics to control deployment/inflation process and to get telemetry and video data. The program includes laboratory, wind tunnel, vacuum chamber tests of the system components and a number of tropospheric and stratospheric flight tests of deployment and inflation of light-film balloons in a simulated Martian environment Key issues in the design include: the use of proven materials or their combinations; the availability of adequate balloon fabrication technologies and processes; evacuation of gas from the balloon prior to packaging and the design of a balloon container capable of storing the balloon over a wide range of ambient pressures. Tests that have been made at JPL and at the Vertical Wind Tunnel at NASA Langley Research Center clarified many of the first order issues discussed above and lead to the baseline configuration with inflation from the bottom without a reefing mechanism.


    Access

    Access via TIB

    Check availability in my library


    Export, share and cite



    Title :

    Technology Validation Program for Mars Aerobot Micromission


    Contributors:
    J. Cutts (author) / V. Kerzhanovich (author) / A. Bachelder (author) / J. Patzold (author) / J. Cameron (author)

    Publication date :

    1999


    Size :

    2 pages


    Type of media :

    Report


    Type of material :

    No indication


    Language :

    English




    Mars Aerobot Validation Program

    Kerzhanovich, V. / Cutts, J. / Bachelder, A. et al. | British Library Conference Proceedings | 1999


    Mars Aerobot Validation Program

    Kerzhanovich, V. V. / Cutts, J. / Bachelder, A. et al. | NTRS | 1999


    Mars Aerobot Validation Program

    V. V. Kerzhanovich / J. Cutts / A. Bachelder et al. | NTIS | 1999


    Mars aerobot validation program

    Kerzhanovich, V. / Cutts, J. / Bachelder, A. et al. | AIAA | 1999


    Technology Validation Program for Mars Aerobot Micromission

    Cutts, J. / Kerzhanovich, V. / Bachelder, A. et al. | NTRS | 1999