A new method for landing on Mars

Up to now, the only means to land payloads on Mars have involved a heavy, complicated, expensive retro-rocket landing system. Another method to land payloads is to use a novel solar heated hot-air balloon, or Solar Montgolfiere, which looks promising to replace the retro-rocket landing system, while increasing usable landed payload. The Solar Montgolfiere is a simple device that deploys like a parachute, fills with ambient atmosphere, and then quickly heats up by solar heating. to achieve significant buoyancy within 1-2 min. The combined effect of the balloon buoyancy and the parachuting effect of the balloon results in landing speeds of < 5 m/s for the payload, as opposed to Pathfinder retro-rocket landing speeds of about 20 m/s. Using this balloon landing system enables a number of payloads with entry masses as large as 15 kg to be carried inexpensively to Mars on the Ariane 5 Piggyback launches. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.