The NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center in California has unveiled the prototype for an aircraft built just for Martian skies. The Preliminary Research Aerodynamic Design to Land on Mars (Prandtl-m), which seems to be built on the "less is more" philosophy, will fly over Mars, collecting data and high-resolution photos. One application of this technology would be to scout potential landing sites for future manned missions to the planet. Prandtl-m program manager Al Bowers says that the reason for the boomerang-like design is that it "could best recover from the unusual conditions of an ejection" when it is launched as part of the ballast from a rover-transporting aeroshell. This may be a big idea but the "Mars airplane" has a wingspan of just 24 inches, and will weigh under a pound (even less on Mars, where gravity is 38 percent of Earth's).
