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At an astronomy meeting this evening, I obtained a
bit of met data about Mars. Not sure as to how accurate this all is. The day (sol) is 24.5 hours long. The atmospheric pressure is about 6 millibar on the plains, increasing to a maximum of 10 millibars in some of the basins such as the Hellas Basin. The pressure falls off rapidly and is probably negligible in the highlands and at the top of Olympus Mons. On the equator the temperature varies between around +10 centigrade at midday down to maybe -40 centigrade at night. However this is the surface temperature. At 2 feet the temperature falls to 0 centigrade, and at 4-5 feet the temperature is down to -20 centigrade. Winds have been measured at around 50-60 mph. There are large scale atmospheric events such as duststorms which can be global in extent. There are also thought to be 'dust devils' which are similar in profile to tornados but which extend up to 30,000ft. There are clouds which may be water at 15 miles and carbon dioxide at upto 25 miles. Mars is about 1/10 the mass of the earth. There are some ridge features available. Many craters have ridges about 300ft high at the top. There are also dunes and step effects with heights of 6-30 feet. There is a very large valley, Mariner valley which is much bigger than the rift valley. Around the base of Mons Olympus there is a ridge which is four miles high. There can be carbon dioxide fogs in the Hellas basin. Wilst the earth year is 365 days, the earth is 93 million miles from the sun and this distance only varies by about 4 million miles. However on Mars the distance to the sun is around 120 million miles at the closest but over 150 million miles at the furthest. So the possible gliding conditions appear to be: Ridge running on Olympus Mons - 4 mile high ridge, pressure 2-4 millibar, temp around -20 to -60 centigrade, wind 20-100 knots. IMC climbs in small very tight dust devils - practice in tornados first. Probably significant G-force/stress issues! Thermal flying - pressure 2-8 millibar, temp around -60 to +10 centigrade, height range 3-30 ft, flight time 6-10 hours. This would probably be quite difficult to achieve as long wingspans would not be compatible with steep banking at a few feet. Straight downhill glides at very shallow angles (LD may need to be several 100 or 1000) from the top of the Hellas basin, or across/along the Mariner 'rift' valley. Thus I think the glider would need to fly in very low atmospheric pressure of 0.1 to 10 millibars, in a temperature range of -80 to +20 centigrade. It would need to be strong enough not to break up in the local dust devils. Have an excellent LD and possibly very small wingspan. I suspect that we will need to sort out our local stratospheric soaring before we can build a glider to fly successfully in these conditions. Rory O'Conor |
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