AFRL Tests Mars Flyer Concept

Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) researchers continue to play a critical role in the future of Mars exploration. Scientists from AFRL’s Air Vehicles Aerospace Vehicle Integration and Demonstration Branch, NASA Ames Research Center, and Naval Research Laboratory met from September 18-20 to perform testing of a Mars Flyer model in AFRL’s vertical wind tunnel.

The Mars Flyer is an unmanned air vehicle concept that would fly over the surface of Mars, collecting data and transmitting vital information about the Mars surface and atmosphere back to researchers on Earth. It would collect data such as evidence of water or ice just below the planet’s surface, evidence of methane related processes in the atmosphere, and the structure and turbulent behavior of the atmosphere itself. Airplanes over Mars can be just as useful, in many ways, as airplanes over the Earth.