Chinese scientists have sketched out plans for drones to fly across Mars at five times the speed of sound, connecting future human colonies.
A 500kg drone, powered by jet engines running on magnesium, could fly at up to 3,800mph, according to calculations by Professor Xu Xu and colleagues at the school of astronautics at Beihang University in Beijing.
By 2035 China plans to build a hypersonic aircraft capable of flying anywhere on Earth within an hour and by 2045 it aims to have a fleet of space planes capable of flying in orbit. In a sign of the country’s interplanetary ambitions, Professor Xu said that the hypersonic drones could potentially be flying around Mars in the 2050s.
“The first hypersonic flight on Mars may not happen within 30 years because many technical issues need to be solved,” Xu told the South China Morning Post. “But when humans start to colonise Mars, with some settlements built at different locations across the planet, there will be a demand for long-distance transport.”
Hypersonic aircraft are those that can fly at Mach 5 or above, more than twice the top speed of China’s fastest military jet, the J-20 fighter, and most modern western rivals. By the calculation of Xu and his team, future ramjet-powered drones on Mars could use magnesium powder as fuel, which can burn in carbon dioxide at a high enough temperature. Mars has almost no oxygen but its air is 96 per cent carbon dioxide. The hypersonic drone they had in mind would not have huge wings, looking as slim as a cruise missile. The gravity on the planet is about a third as strong as that on Earth and thinner air means less heat produced by turbulence at the same altitude, Xu said. Parts of their findings have been published in the domestic peer-reviewed journal Manned Spaceflight. A scaled-down prototype would need to be built and tested in a wind tunnel full of carbon dioxide to simulate the environment on Mars. In April Nasa successfully flew its Mars helicopter Ingenuity, in the first powered flight on another planet. It took off vertically, hovered and landed within 40 seconds. This month Chinese state media revealed that Beijing was developing a similar Mars helicopter, designed as a wayfinding and reconnaissance aircraft for rovers on the ground. China’s space programme has been developing rapidly and its first Mars rover, Zhurong, has been operating on the planet since May. As of August 30, the rover had travelled 1,064m (3,490ft). The country is also building a permanent space station, with its core module already in orbit. Three Chinese astronauts have been working and living there since June 17. They are likely to return to Earth after China launches a second cargo spaceship, possibly on Monday, to dock with the core module and replenish supplies. The first cargo spaceship was sent up in May.