- 1Institute for Geodesy and Geoinformation Science, Technische Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany (felix.noeding@campus.tu-berlin.de)
- 2Institute of Geological Sciences, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany
- 3Institute of Planetary Research, German Aerospace Center (DLR), Berlin, Germany
The idea of using balloons for planetary surface and atmospheric exploration has been under discussion for many years. Balloons could complement missions of orbiters, landers, and rovers, and enable unique atmospheric or remote sensing investigations with various payloads. Our study deals with the flight behaviour of planetary balloons over the surface of Mars. We studied trajectories for different types of balloons in terms of size, shape and materials starting from different launch points at various diurnal/seasonal launch times. The motion of a balloon is determined by a system of differential equations (Palumbo, 2008), which we solved numerically. The atmospheric parameters applicable to the current location, such as wind speed, temperature and air density, are queried from the Mars Climate Database (Forget et al., 1999; Millour et al., 2022) and used to calculate the gross inflation and the drag (Farley, 2005). At the conference we will present general flight characteristics of various balloon types and different mission scenarios. The results are presented graphically and numerically. In further work, we will consider different properties of carrier gas and related permeability of the balloon’s skin. In addition, we aim at maximizing science opportunities and finding optimal composition of the variables with the help of an optimisation or machine learning algorithm.
References:
Farley, R. (2005, September 26). BalloonAscent: 3-D Simulation Tool for the Ascent and Float of High-Altitude Balloons. AIAA 5th ATIO And16th Lighter-Than-Air Sys Tech. and Balloon Systems Conferences. AIAA 5th ATIO and16th Lighter-Than-Air Sys Tech. and Balloon Systems Conferences, Arlington, Virginia. https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2005-7412
Forget, F., Hourdin, F., Fournier, R., Hourdin, C., Talagrand, O., Collins, M., Lewis, S. R., Read, P. L., & Huot, J. (1999). Improved general circulation models of the Martian atmosphere from the surface to above 80 km. Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, 104(E10), 24155–24175. https://doi.org/10.1029/1999JE001025
Millour, E., Forget, F., Spiga, A., Pierron, T., Bierjon, A., Montabone, L., Vals, M., Lefèvre, F., Chaufray, J.-Y., Lopez-Valverde, M., Gonzalez-Galindo, F., Lewis, S., Read, P., Desjean, M.-C., Cipriani, F., & MCD Team. (2022, September 23). The Mars Climate Database (Version 6.1). https://doi.org/10.5194/epsc2022-786
Palumbo, R. (2008). A simulation model for trajectory forecast, performance analysis and aerospace mission planning with high altitude zero pressure balloons [Application/pdf]. https://doi.org/10.6092/UNINA/FEDOA/1839
How to cite: Nöding, F., Ziese, R., and Oberst, J.: Analysis of Balloon Missions and Flight Trajectories on Mars, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-17677, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-17677, 2025.