Aerospace lander to fuel up on Mars

Thu Nov 18, 2010

Hugo Williams and his colleagues at the University of Leicester in the UK argue that the aerospace giant Astrium lander can gather up its own fuel in the planet Mars.

Scientists and researchers claim that a design concept in Proceedings of the Royal Society A outlines an approach to compress CO2 collected from the atmosphere of Mars, liquefy it and use it as fuel needed by nuclear decay-driven machines such as the aerospace giant Astrium lander, a jumping robot, which can give future robotic missions leaps of a kilometer.

At present, vehicles that are powered by the sun, ie the solar energy, and get around on wheels are limited in their overall range of exploration on the Red Planet.

In scientific meetings, Ideas including landers with wings or lighter-than-atmosphere balloons, or even "inflatable tumbleweeds" that are blown across the landscape have been proposed.

So far, "Nuclear batteries" have been in use in long-term space missions since the Pioneer craft of the early 1970s.

"The advantage is that the radioisotope source is long-lived and not dependent on solar energy," Dr Williams said about the CO2 collection of the machines as fuel.

"You can operate for a long time, and in areas of Mars where the amount of sunlight is relatively small. Because you're collecting your propellant from the Martian atmosphere you're not limited by having to take propellant out from Earth."

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://presstv.ir/detail/151506.html.