Back to the catalog
Software — free catalog
Mountain Wave Soaring with Sailplanes on Mars and other planetary bodies with atmospheres and weather
A NASA software catalog entry available for reuse or request.
About this technology
Overview
A new concept to fly sailplanes on Mars that exploit atmospheric gravity waves generated by the southern polar vortex interacting with terrain. The idea is to go wave hopping to stay in the air from fall to spring and cover many kms to conduct cross-seasonal, large-scale atmospheric studies. We are primarily inspired by the Airbus Perlan 2 project, which has been using a similar approach on Earth to set high-altitude records.