A robotic airplane may be just the right ticket for economically exploring
swaths of Martian territory up close.

From July 17 to 24, 2002, The Planetary Society will team up with NASA Ames
Research Center, the SETI Institute, and MicroPilot to fly an unmanned
aerial vehicle (UAV) over Devon Island in the Canadian Arctic in simulated
Mars exploration. The airborne scientific investigations of this remote
region will coincide with the anniversary of two milestone events in space
exploration history – the Apollo 11 landing on the Moon in 1969 and Viking 1
landing on Mars in 1976, both on July 20th.

Devon Island is a treeless polar desert as large as the state of West
Virginia. Its climate, remoteness, rocky plains, deep canyons, rugged
landscape, and lack of human population make it a good analog for Mars,
which is why NASA has sponsored the Haughton-Mars Project (HMP) at an impact
crater site there for the past six years. Devon Island is home to the
second most northerly known impact structure on Earth.

“The UAV flights will, in part, be simulations to learn more about the
science and exploration potential of Mars airplanes, carried out in a Mars
analog environment on Earth,” says Planetary Society Director of Projects
Bruce Betts. “In addition, the flights will enable the Ames-led UAV team to
develop flight control strategies for Mars airplanes, and will allow the HMP
science team to study the Mars analog environment itself.”

The UAV team will fly the autonomous craft over a variety of terrains,
exploring Devon Island’s arid landscape from the air just as scientists hope
they may one day explore Mars with autonomous aircraft. During their
one-week stay at Haughton, the team will fly the UAV as many times per day
as weather conditions and fuel supplies will permit. In the summer days are
24 hours long north of the Arctic Circle.

The airplane, manufactured by MicroPilot, is called a Xtra Easy UAV. The
team will bring three such craft to Devon Island. Each UAV measures 175
centimeters from wing tip to wingtip and will be equipped with an on-board
video camera to image the island below. The aircraft are quiet and efficient
with fuel, which will help minimize any disturbance to the environment.

After each short flight, Planetary Society representative and geologist
Emily Lakdawalla will help the HMP Science Team analyze the data and select
the next target for the UAV to observe.

One type of surface feature that the team hopes to examine is water-eroded
gullies that have many similarities to the recent gully systems reported on
Mars. Since the UAV can fly at different altitudes – from 50 to 500 meters
over Devon Island — surface features can be examined from a variety of
angles and perspectives.

“Satellite image resolution is getting better and better, but most
satellites look straight down or nearly straight down at the landscape,”
said Lakdawalla. “Airplanes will let us look at steep features like gullies
and crater walls from the side, and they’ll be able to make multiple passes
at interesting features from different directions.”

The Devon Island experiment does not test a Mars Airplane-like vehicle, but
rather simulates the scientific use of airplanes for Martian exploration.
NASA has seriously studied the Mars Airplane concepts and the agency has
received many airplane proposals in recent years. Mars airplanes have the
potential to fill the gap between orbiters, that gather data over the whole
planet but are limited in resolution and viewing angle, and rovers, that see
a very small portion of Mars in great detail.

In the future, autonomous airplanes might be used to examine more closely
Mars targets that scientists select from orbital images of the planet. In
turn, interesting targets surveyed from the air might be further explored by
ground-based rovers or, one day, by human explorers on the planet’s
surface.

The Planetary Society is beginning a series of activities to simulate
components of possible future Mars Outposts, which are part of a proposed
exploration strategy that would build up sustained, incremental
infrastructure in certain locations on Mars, eventually leading to human
exploration. The Society’s participation at the HMP is in part to simulate
Mars airplanes in this context.

The UAV team, led by Larry Young and Benton Lau of NASA Ames Research
Center, is participating in the Devon Island tests to conduct research on a
Mars mission concept called BEES for Mars. BEES stands for Bio-inspired
Engineering for Exploration Systems. The objective of this NASA Ames
research-and-development effort is to develop flight control strategies for
Mars exploration that are bio-inspired. In other words, the engineers want
to develop technology that mimics and is inspired by some of the behavior
patterns of natural creatures, such as bees or ants.

MicroPilot is a division of Loewen Aviation Ltd. Their autopilot systems
have been used to measure particulate levels of harmful substances around
chemical spills and to conduct aerial photography and videography. They
have flown a number of different aircraft, including backpackable UAV’s,
blimps, powered parachutes, and high-speed drones. Paul Chambers from
MicroPilot will participate in the tests at Devon Island.

Pascal Lee of the SETI Institute directs the NASA Haughton Mars Project.
Many government agencies, universities, industry, and private organizations
cooperate and participate in the project from the United States, Canada, and
other nations around the world.

In addition to Lakdawalla’s role in the tests, The Planetary Society is also
supplying the large dome-shaped hangar tent for the three UAV’s. The
Planetary Society dome will be established at the HMP Base Camp. Living
conditions at Devon Island are basic, and researchers haul accommodations
for themselves and their equipment with them to the Base Camp.

Lakdawalla’s daily updates about the UAV tests will be posted on The
Planetary Society’s website at http://planetary.org. This Devon Diary will
include still images of the UAV team and aircraft in action, and possibly
video from the flights.

-o0o-

THE PLANETARY SOCIETY:

Carl Sagan, Bruce Murray and Louis Friedman founded The Planetary Society in
1980 to advance the exploration of the solar system and to continue the
search for extraterrestrial life. With members in over 140 countries, the
Society is the largest space interest group in the world. For more
information about The Planetary Society, contact Susan Lendroth at (626)
793-5100 ext 237 or by e-mail at susan.lendroth@planetary.org, or visit
planetary.org.

THE NASA HAUGHTON-MARS PROJECT

The NASA Haughton-Mars Project (HMP) (http://www.marsonearth.org) is an
international interdisciplinary field research project centered on the
scientific study of the Haughton impact crater and surrounding terrains,
Devon Island, Nunavut, Arctic Canada, viewed as a possible Mars analog. The
rocky polar desert setting, geologic features and biological attributes of
the site offer unique insights into the evolution of Mars, the effects of
impacts on Earth and other planets, and the possibilities of life in extreme
environments. The opportunity of scientific field studies at Haughton is
also used to support studies in exploration research, to investigate the
technologies, strategies, human factors and hardware designs relevant to the
future exploration of Mars and other planetary bodies by robots and humans.
HMP-2002 is the 6th field season of the HMP. The HMP is managed by the SETI
Institute at the institute’s Center for the Study of Life in the Universe.
Pascal Lee, principal investigator at the SETI Institute, is Project Lead
and Principal Investigator (HMP PI) of the NASA Haughton-Mars Project, which
is run under Cooperative Agreement with NASA (Grant contract #NCC2-1185).
The HMP is based at NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, CA. In
addition to NASA, the HMP is supported by a number of academic and research
institutions from around the world, other government agencies from the U.S.
and Canada, industry, and private non-profit organizations, including The
Planetary Society. Logistical support in the field is provided in part by
the Polar Continental Shelf Project of Natural Resources Canada and by the
United States Marine Corps. For more information about The NASA
Haughton-Mars Project, visit www.marsonearth.org.

THE SETI INSTITUTE

The SETI Institute (http://www.seti.org) was incorporated as a 501 (c) (3)
non-profit California corporation on November 20, 1984. The purpose of the
Institute, as defined at that time and still true today, is to conduct
scientific research and educational projects relevant to the origin, nature,
prevalence, and distribution of life in the universe. This work includes two
primary research areas: 1) SETI, and 2) Life in the Universe research.
Concurrent with its research focus, the Institute strives to contribute to
both formal and informal science education related to these fields of
interest. Over its seventeen-year history, the Institute has administered
over $150 million of funded research. For more information about the SETI
Institute, visit www.seti.org, or contact Diane Richards at (650) 960-4513
or by e-mail at drichards@seti.org.