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  • Garry Qualls October 7, 2009 at 8:43pm
    The big guidance & navigational challenges for ARES arise from performing an aeromagnetic survey to investigate Mars' crazy crustal magnetism. This requires multiple, offset, parallel tracks at a constant altitude. There is an IMU on board, but since they always drift over time, there is also a sun sensor that tells the airplane what direction the sun is in. The Sun sensor isn't all that precise and errors still build up while it flies in a straight line for 100+ km, but the 180 degree turns at the end of each survey leg really help to tamp down the errors. Here is a full paper that provides an overview of everything:

    The Mars Airplane: A Credible Science Platform
  • T3
    Rory Paul October 6, 2009 at 10:09pm
    I would have thought that they could have dropped some stationary radio beacons in to improve their accuracy.
  • automatik October 6, 2009 at 9:53pm
    that's a beautiful bird !
  • Sergio Rivero October 6, 2009 at 9:51pm
    The navigation is not quite as impressive as the Video Camera mounted on the Tail of the plane. They claim that they can read the writing on a candy wrapper sitting on the ground from a Mile up with it.
  • isobot October 6, 2009 at 9:50pm
    Check out the test drop video at http://marsairplane.larc.nasa.gov/graphics/dropStory.320x240.mov
  • Sergio Rivero October 6, 2009 at 9:45pm
    Condor, I found this explanation for how they will navigate the plane on Mars. The link takes you to a PDF file with some data on it.
    pdf.aiaa.org/preview/CDReadyMUAV2003_834/PV2003_6608.pdf
  • Sergio Rivero October 6, 2009 at 9:36pm
    They have a simulator you can download and see how it flys. It's under the Multimedia menu option. Kids might like it.
  • Sergio Rivero October 6, 2009 at 9:34pm
    Star Navigation, like Colombus.

    Maybe they have mapped coordinates on previous missions to Mars and are giving it coordinates from those previous scouting missions. Just a thought.
  • 3D Robotics
    Chris Anderson October 6, 2009 at 9:29pm
    Spacecraft use celestial navigation (stars). Maybe that would work on Mars?
  • T3
    Rory Paul October 6, 2009 at 9:26pm
    Anybody have an idea how they would navigate accurately without GPS?
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