Feasible Mission Design of a Martian Airship and Verification with a Trajectory Control Simulation

Increasing interest in Mars would benefit from a new approach that bridges the gap between local rover measurements and global orbit observations. This study proposes an airship to serve as a platform for hosting scientific instruments, thus adding the advantage of capturing vertical features of Martian terrain and benefiting science. The most critical challenge is to build the feasible design of an airship which can safely navigate under harsh environment with the thin atmosphere and strong wind on Mars. This paper, building on previous studies conducted at EPFL, addresses this issue and presents a refined design of a Martian airship mission including mass and power budget. The trajectory simulation verifies the feasibility of the design.