Mission-Responsive, On-Demand 3d Printed Blimps For Martian Missions

Rover-based exploration of Mars is inherently limited by the time-consuming process of surface movement. Even traveling constantly at maximum speed ( which is logistically impossible), each rover is only be able to explore a small fraction of the planet. Orbital and aerial survey missions provide a partial solution to this, allowing larger areas to be assessed; however, a follow-up rover mission is then needed to collect samples, higher quality imagery and other data for interesting areas. To overcome this, this paper proposes to deploy autonomous blimps in the Martian atmosphere to provide a highly mobile aerial sensing platform. These blimps would also have onboard 3D printing units that are able to produce other smaller blimps for lower-altitude aerial data collection and landing to collect samples.In this paper, a high-level design for a blimp system with an aerial platform that can 3D print smaller blimps and its use to perform missions on Mars is presented and assessed. A framework for the blimp control decision-making system, including decision making about when a smaller blimp should be produced and its configuration, is proposed. Prospective missions for the system, such as surface observation or landing to take a soil sample, are discussed and used to evaluate the efficacy of the design and decision-making system. The paper concludes with a discussion of current technical limitations to the proposed drone system and mission and a discussion of the pathway to getting the technology ready for mission use.