New Mars Forums

I'm back; I morphed into a photon from a neutrino. I couldn't remember my password and I changed my internet provider so I had to assume another name.

We have done some tests on this proposal and presented it at the last Mars Society conference. A paper was presented to them soon after the conference. A proposal is in the works to apply for funding from NASA.

This is the web site where you can find it at [http://www.arrow-space-innovations.com]Arrow Space Innovations I posted a copy of the paper that is up for publication on that web site.

The Windsurfer will work on Mars by taking advantage of the wind currents above the surface because of a natural effect of the way the wind moves above the ground. The Martian boundary layer, 200 meters to 500 meters above the surface is where the wind speed is much greater than it is on the ground. This elevation is where the Windsurfer, balloon and dragchute would extract the most energy out of the wind. By just doubling the velocity of the wind we can extract 8 times more energy out of it, this is enough energy to pull the Windsurfing rover.

There are several different types of balloons this could be used with, zero pressure balloon, ULD balloon or a solar heated balloon. They all three have different requirements and durations.

Using the data we extracted out of the Viking and Pathfinder landers we have shown that this balloon dragchute rover design would move freely over Mars at those locations over 10 percent of the time. By doing this it could theoretically travel over 500 miles in a three week period at an average speed of 10 MPH for an average time of 2.4 hours per day.