mars reusable shuttle glider

[flytandem]

A recent challenge presented to me by Dgatsoulis involving a dead stick glider landing using a fuel-less deltaglider onto Mars has me again thinking of a niche spaceraft that would be used just for that purpose. A mars only shuttle that lands like a glider.

I know just enough about aerodynamics to get myself into trouble usually but I do think that with only 1% the density (mars surface relative to earth surface) one could fly an airspeed 10 times faster than a hang glider (10 m/s*10= 100 m/s) and get 100 times the lift since lift is the square of the speed, making up for the 1% density one is flying through. And since the surface gravity is less than 40% that of earth, the actual wing loading of such a winged spacecraft could perhaps be 2.5 times that of a typical hang glider here on earth.

I visualize a retracting wing so that it can be at high speed in the upper atmosphere with wings fully retracted and hiding behind a delta shaped heat shield. Upon entry, as the craft descends and slows it does a combination of expanding the wings in a manner somewhat birdlike and in addition some telescoping to create ultimately a very high aspect ratio flying wing similar in shape to a modern hang glider wing.

Landing gear (perhaps tricycle) can drop from the wings. Power from a rocket engine would be available. It would have enough fuel to climb to orbit and then deorbit, plus dock with ships in orbit. It would take off and land on a 3km runway and when in max lift configuration would be able to slow to under 100 m/s or maybe even 60 m/s near the surface?

I am pretty sure that number crunching the L/D of the wing throughout it's configurations altitudes and speeds would have to calculate and use Reynolds number which would mean the density and viscosity of the atmosphere would have to be known as well as the speeds and size of the craft.

do we have any orbinauts that are versed in software development and also know aerodynamics that could assemble a simple version of this type of craft?

anyway; food for thought

flytandem

 

[BruceJohnJennerLawso]

A recent challenge presented to me by Dgatsoulis involving a dead stick glider landing using a fuel-less deltaglider onto Mars has me again thinking of a niche spaceraft that would be used just for that purpose. A mars only shuttle that lands like a glider.

I know just enough about aerodynamics to get myself into trouble usually but I do think that with only 1% the density (mars surface relative to earth surface) one could fly an airspeed 10 times faster than a hang glider (10 m/s*10= 100 m/s) and get 100 times the lift since lift is the square of the speed, making up for the 1% density one is flying through. And since the surface gravity is less than 40% that of earth, the actual wing loading of such a winged spacecraft could perhaps be 2.5 times that of a typical hang glider here on earth.

I visualize a retracting wing so that it can be at high speed in the upper atmosphere with wings fully retracted and hiding behind a delta shaped heat shield. Upon entry, as the craft descends and slows it does a combination of expanding the wings in a manner somewhat birdlike and in addition some telescoping to create ultimately a very high aspect ratio flying wing similar in shape to a modern hang glider wing.

Landing gear (perhaps tricycle) can drop from the wings. Power from a rocket engine would be available. It would have enough fuel to climb to orbit and then deorbit, plus dock with ships in orbit. It would take off and land on a 3km runway and when in max lift configuration would be able to slow to under 100 m/s or maybe even 60 m/s near the surface?

I am pretty sure that number crunching the L/D of the wing throughout it's configurations altitudes and speeds would have to calculate and use Reynolds number which would mean the density and viscosity of the atmosphere would have to be known as well as the speeds and size of the craft.

do we have any orbinauts that are versed in software development and also know aerodynamics that could assemble a simple version of this type of craft?

anyway; food for thought

flytandem

Sounds interesting, but a little too much for me right now. Perhaps some sketches would help?

 

[Cras]

This sounds like a great idea.

 

[flytandem]

Maybe a simple way is to leave it with only moving parts as control surfaces and landing gear and not pivot the wing at all. The Leading edge would handle the heating on entry, which may be minimal if only dropping in from low Mars orbit and doing probably a full orbit in the atmosphere while gradually slowing.
Here's a suggested shape...

Even the stock deltaglider is not too far from what I envision in performance. When empty, during entry, and if kept in the upper atmosphere, the deltaglider only decelerates at about 0.2 m/s/s. until much lower and slower when it begins to decelerate at more like 1 m/s/s. And if empty if will slow to about 220 m/s before stalling near the surface. So maybe a flying wing that allows 1000 kg payload in either people or supplies and maybe 500 kg in empty craft weight but a large enough span and area to have stall speed under 100 m/s.

For structure, it could be lighter by spreading out the load down the length of the wing. Astronauts are suited in same self contained suits as will be needed when on the surface of Mars and will lay prone inside the wing. So there is no need to pressurize the wing. Just a simple computer controlled flying wing of minimal weight. Maybe dimensions could be... area of 120 m^2, span 30 meters, mean chord of 4 meters.

 

[Evil_Onyx]

From your original post i was thinking of this possibly

 

[flytandem]

Just playing around with more slow entry profiles at Mars, I found the non-fueled deltaglider easy to make one full orbit at 58 km agl and about 3200 m/s velocity with a deceleration of just 2 or 3 cm/s/s. The deceleration rate slowly increased going into the second orbit. From initial deorbit burn to final landing was just short of complete orbits. I have no idea what heating there would be with such gradual slowing in such a thin atmospheric condition. Anyone know how to look this up? Could a simple carbon leading edge on a flying wing handle the heating?

 

[Hlynkacg]

I actually considered doing a "Mars Flyer" space plane based on a combination of this study and a [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baikal_booster"]Baikal Reusable booster[/ame] but I never got past the concept phase.

Eventually I decided that a Delta Clipper-esque vessel would be more practical and shelved it.

 

[flytandem]

I found this page, and look at the second chart...
http://www.spacetethers.com/reentry.html
I know it's for Earth but given about a 30 km difference (30 km at earth is about like mars 0 km) when I am at 58 km on Mars it's about like 88 km on Earth. And using the chart, at the 88 km height and a speed of 3.2 km/sec, the temps are off the scale but extrapolating it seems the temps will be about 300C or less. I suspect a simple carbon leading edge not unlike a modern composite hang glider could work just fine. ??

 

[Graham2001]

There's a spacecraft created for Orbiter'03 that might fit the bill, Kev Shanow's Mars Glider

[ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=467"]http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=467[/ame]

 

[KirkUnit]

Do You Mean Something Like This?

George Pal's 1954 version of the Von Braun Mars Ship? I've got one on the back burner - just working on the flying wing section right now...

It is difficult to find information on it other than pictures, and it appears that they used several models in the film and there were differences between each model.

KirkUnit