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Mars_B4_Moon

Member

Registered: 2006-03-23

Posts: 9,774

Lighthouse, pings, airtraffic control towers for Mars, Europa, Titan

Better described as 'navigational beacons' maybe.

On Earth there are people direct helicopters and aircraft to land on Carrier ships, Oil platforms or on the ground and through a given section of controlled airspace, there are already helicopters flying on Mars. On our Earth the has somewhat been a standardization of road signs, people across the world recognize certain hand signals and symbolism, on Mars there might be common English or Latin words, a symbol on a Japan door the same as the same symbol on a Canadian or German door, there might be an Aeronautical or Shipping phraseology on Titan, Europa or Mars, over use of slang, jargon and chatting would be discouraged and communication would be simple and professional. Each time a ship or aircraft arrives to land at a busy port it has guidance.

There is also debate if Balloons and Aircraft can be used, Piloting may be done using the way of robotics by using Artificial Intelligence delivering product and samples without risking human life, or pilotage could have manned elements in space colonies the process of navigating on water or in the air. The ice on Europa is very thick but there are parts which may be thin, on Earth the conning tower is a raised platform the ship or submarine, the human officer in charge would conduct or control the vessel at this site, the tower of periscope would break through the surface for navigation. Mars, Titan or Europa might operate a type of hyperbolic navigation system, enabling vehicles to determine their position by receiving very low frequency (VLF) radio signals in the range 10 to 14 kHz, transmitted by a global network of fixed radio beacons, Radar navigation would be in use as they are not military vehicles but colonization and exploration vehicles, the utilization of cosmic marine and planetary aviation radar systems for space vessel and spaceplane aircraft navigation. Inside your vessel a computer image from radio signals and the radar can be displayed, captured or recorded to a computer monitor or put into a language that makes it easy for a human or Artificial Intelligence Robot to understand, Mars navigators would work at Coordinated Universal Time and the local 'second' measurement set to the Mars Atomic Clocks. Unfortunately the Mars day is not the same as the Earth day so there might be a debate on timestamps.
' Units of Measure '
http://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=10618

A Guiding Light: The Airway Beacon Tower
https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/edit … acon-tower

In 1905, Rudyard Kipling authored With the Night Mail: A Story of 2000 A.D., a science fiction tale detailing various aspects of domestic and international commercial airship travel ninety-five years into the future. A prominent feature of Kipling’s worldbuilding was a system of light beacons, some strong enough to bore holes through clouds, that guided blimps to their destinations. Less than twenty years later, his vision was already happening in the United States. The Post Office and Army Air Service pioneered airmail services near the end of World War I, but quickly discovered that navigation could be a potentially significant problem.

an unforeseen event might happen at Mars outside of normal operations, without proper maintenance and inspection there is wear and tear of the vehicle, a flying vehicle might see electric damage by lightning strike or a computer component damaged by cosmic ray or dust discharge or during a Solar Storm, Dust may bring other risks, a number of methods might be in use an unmanned vehicle or human or humanoid robot 'eyeballing' the landing, looking out for a beacon but also depending on other instrumentation sensors and some local Mars system similar to Earth's GPS Navigation. During a problem event for example Apollo-13 older methods might be put into practice for example 'Celestial Navigation'. Sometimes on Earth your phone will have an element of Artificial Intelligence during communication with GPS as links are interrupted it will still calculate from the last known position using that as a reference and will remember you’re on a road traveling through a tunnel and maintain the directions it was giving you when you went in the tunnel. Inside the Caves and Tunnels of Planet Earth they are finally getting some of the 'Map Apps' to Work Properly in Tunnels, the technology was brought inside Car Tunnel, Metro, Subway and Underground systems beacons installed inside major city tunnels. It is more normal to stay connected inside  Sydney, New York City, Chicago, Paris, Rio, Brussels, Oslo, Boston, Tokyo tunnels. In ships and submarine Inertial navigation system is an estimated position source, Fathometer depth measurements existed and Echo sounding or depth sounding is used for ranging, 'Active Sonar' can be used in a narrow passage or when entering and exiting ports.
We have mapped a lot of Mars but we don't know what its caves are like, know less about Titan and Europa, they will require under water mapping and Topographic maps. Mars might have some sub-surface lakes underneath glaciers but perhaps not worth investing with the amount of water that is available, info can be echoed and relayed to deliver a simulated GPS satellite signal that transmits the position as if you could see the sky. the features of using Car-GPS inside the tunnels of Earth appears to be widely rolling out on apps and car navigation devices, a GPS system of Traffic Control would improve Mining Safety and be able to track goods and packages in real time.

it is possible the Lakes and underwater caves of Titan and Europa will not be first explored by humans but by some Unmanned surface vehicle

'Traffic Control at Mars'
http://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=9848

Texture Modification of the Shuttle Landing Facility Runway at Kennedy Space Center
http://web.archive.org/web/201208291729 … tp3626.pdf

Alphabet's Loon AI-powered internet balloons have learned to tack like a sailor and move with the wind
https://www.zdnet.com/home-and-office/n … -the-wind/

"As a result we notice the balloons sometimes fly a zig-zag pattern in which they stray from their course, in some cases almost reversing themselves, before resuming in the desired direction," explained Candido.

"By changing the orientation of a vessel in relation to the wind, a sailor can make progress despite unfavorable conditions using this technique.

"Given that balloons and sail boats are both wind-driven vehicles and that tacking has been employed by sailors for thousands of years, it shouldn't be surprising that this could be a useful technique. But it was surprising to us the first time we saw the system begin to execute this maneuver -- so surprising, in fact, that we manually over-rode the system."

Loon's self-teaching algorithms have also learned to strategically 'loiter' in areas based on predicted wind changes, again to optimize routing choices.

And when the goal is to keep the balloons above a specific area, Loon algorithms have settled on a figure 8 pattern and back-and-forth patterns rather than a circular path expected by engineers.

Autonomous navigation of stratospheric balloons using reinforcement learning
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2939-8

A German language video, calculating the flight route from your Balloon probe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWs5GX_W7RQ

F-4 Phantom Helmet Cam
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GRIK8RQgFM

U-2 spy plane landing at Beale AFB U2 raw video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ih57FiOeZXU

Nord 1500 Griffon demonstration
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0s7kMi35yA

On Antarctica

'Lighthouses of Antarctica'
https://www.ibiblio.org/lighthouse/ata.htm

In the Lighthouse Directory navigational beacons are considered to be lighthouses if they have a height of at least 4 meters and a footprint of at least 4 square meters. By this standard Antarctica has no lighthouses. However, this page lists a number of taller beacons that approach lighthouse status. Several of these lights have been described as "the world's southernmost lighthouse."

Mars_B4_Moon

Member

Registered: 2006-03-23

Posts: 9,774

Re: Lighthouse, pings, airtraffic control towers for Mars, Europa, Titan

Materials available on Titan and Europa are very different to Mars#

some other discussions

Juno - Jupiter Polar Orbiter
http://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=1538

Titan, with modest efforts
http://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=6225

Methods to Lunar Orbit
http://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=4856

Submarines general topic
http://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=10514

tahanson43206

Moderator

Registered: 2018-04-27

Posts: 18,452

Re: Lighthouse, pings, airtraffic control towers for Mars, Europa, Titan

This post is reserved for an index to posts that may be contributed by NewMars members over time.

This topic seems (to me at least) to have significant upside potential.

Every object in the solar system that presents a hazard to navigation needs it's own beacon.  The task of placing those beacons will occupy generations of humans and their robotic assistants.

(th)

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 29,357

Re: Lighthouse, pings, airtraffic control towers for Mars, Europa, Titan

We have talk in an oldfart1939 postings about the need for a mars gps system and beacons for the surface of mars to reduce landing distances from 1 rocket to another.