Volume 01 | Issue 35 | February 22, 2021
Mars Perseverance, Hurricane Drones, Future Aviation Research

Welcome back to the Future of Aerospace, where each week we dive into a few of the trends rapidly defining the next generation of aircraft and aerial markets.

Watch video of the landing of the Mars Perseverance rover on the surface of Mars just posted by NASA/JPL here. More on how Perseverance will explore the surface of Mars for signs of life in this week's issue.

Boeing published a statement to its website yesterday recommending the grounding of all in-service Boeing 777 aircraft powered by Pratt & Whitney 4000-112 engines after a United Airlines flight experienced a failure to that model shortly after takeoff the day before.

THIS WEEK: As NASA's Perseverance Mars rover relays high definition imagery and video to mission control at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California the ground vehicle's robotic arm is preparing to drill into, take pictures of and analyze minerals, chemicals, and other critical sources of life on the Red Planet. (Longshots)

Sixteen years ago an experimental unmanned aircraft system (UAS) was launched into tropical cyclone Ophelia. Now the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is working to develop specialized UAS to deploy into hurricanes and gather data previously inaccessible to scientists. (UAS Integration)

The aviation industry will be driven by three factors in the coming years: a global market, sustainability, and transformative technologies, James Kenyon, director of the advanced air vehicles program at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), said during a Feb. 9 webinar.  (Electrification & Sustainability)





Thanks for reading.

— The Future of Aerospace Team
The Robotic Arm and Instruments That Will Drill, Analyze and Visualize Mars
Image: NASA

As NASA's Perseverance Mars rover relays high definition imagery and video to mission control at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California the ground vehicle's robotic arm is preparing to drill into, take pictures of and analyze minerals, chemicals, and other critical sources of life on the Red Planet.

Perseverance, landed on Mars on Thursday, Feb. 18, at 3:55 EST after a 203-day journey traveling over 293 million miles. NASA/JPL’s Mars Exploration program is to collect samples from Mars and bring them back to Earth.


What're some of the instruments that will explore the surface of Mars and what're they looking for?
  • Among the most visible technologies featured on the 2,263-pound car-sized Rover is its 7-foot long primary robotic arm. During the mission, the arm will allow the rover to drill through Martian rocks to collect core samples, operate scientific instruments that will take images and perform analysis of the Martian surface, and deposit samples in the rover's chassis, according to NASA.

  • Tom McCarthy, VP of business development for Motiv Space Systems: (the company that makes the robotic arm) ""On the arm, there is Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals (SHERLOC), which is an ultraviolet spectrometer and that studies mineralogy and chemistry. Another camera featured on the arm is called Wide Angle Topographic Sensor for Operations and Engineering (WATSON), and it works together with SHERLOC for doing inspections of rock and soil."

  • Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry (PIXL) is another instrument featured on the arm, an X-ray spectrometer that will perform chemical composition investigation. WATSON's imager will also be mapping out the presence of carbo-based minerals and organic materials that are similar to those that serve as building blocks for life on earth, according to NASA.

  • WATSON's imager will also be mapping out the presence of carbo-based minerals and organic materials that are similar to those that serve as building blocks for life on earth, according to NASA.
Acting NASA Administrator Steve Jurczyk: "For those who wonder how you land on Mars – or why it is so difficult – or how cool it would be to do so – you need to look no further. Perseverance is just getting started, and already has provided some of the most iconic visuals in space exploration history. It reinforces the remarkable level of engineering and precision that is required to build and fly a vehicle to the Red Planet."


Read the full story here.
NOAA is Looking for Hurricane Hunting Drones
Image: NOAA

Sixteen years ago an experimental unmanned aircraft system (UAS) was launched into tropical cyclone Ophelia. Now the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is working to develop specialized UAS to deploy into hurricanes and gather data previously inaccessible to scientists.

“When these storms make landfall, they impact buildings, they impact us, so we want to know what those winds are really close to the surface,” Dr. Joe Cione, lead meteorologist for NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Lab Hurricane Research Division, said. “The P-3 we fly goes about 10,000 feet but can't get low because of safety concerns. It's just not practical. You're not gonna have a manned aircraft with 20 souls on there, going down, and flying 100 feet off the deck with 60, 50, 30-foot waves and 100-mile per hour winds. So that's why we want to use drones to safely get down there.”


What would drones provide that current technology does not?
  • Currently, NOAA uses dropsondes, which are sensors tethered to parachutes, to get data from hurricanes, however, there is no controlling where they go after they are launched. UAS would be able to deploy to different parts of the hurricane and gather more information. Cione described it as watching a movie versus looking at a picture.

  • “What we're trying to do is validate a new technology that will enable us to gather meteorological data in a portion of the storm that we currently have very little means to capture that data from,” Lt. Cmdr. Adam Abitbol, NOAA Corps test pilot and WP-3D Orion aircraft commander for test flights deploying the Altius UAS, said.

  • Abitbol: “So, what this will allow us to do is collect an immense amount of new data in one of the very highly sought after areas of the hurricane or tropical storm which is called the boundary layer. That area that is kind of closest to the ground and currently to get information or meteorological data from that boundary layer is quite difficult and not only difficult but we can not get very much of it.”

  • In January NOAA tested of one of these UAS, an Altius-600 made by Area-I, in a clear air test at Naval Air Station Patuxent River’s test range. The Altius-600 is a 27-pound aircraft with a nine-foot wingspan. NOAA is using a build-up approach to test these UAS, Abitbol said. The first test of this UAS occurred in 2019 and looked just at the ability to safely launch a UAS from the P-3. The January demonstrations were more complex but still occurred under normal weather conditions.

The benefits of these missions will be two-fold. The data gathered by these UAS will be used immediately to track hurricanes. It will also be used to improve future hurricane modeling, Cione said.

“The immediate payoff of using something like drone technology gives us a lot more observations, movie verse snapshot, and gives us better indication of what the winds are especially as we're getting close to landfall,” Cione said. “And then a slower roll impact is we can improve our understanding, and then future, you have to do model development. So it's months to years, but you can eventually improve the models to give you a better future forecast for intensity change. So it's a kind of a help me now, and then help me later kind of approach.”



Read the full story here.
What Will Drive the Aviation Industry into the 21st Century?
Image: Wisk

The UK government is funding an electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) airport to be used by drones and air taxis. The Urban Air Port Air-One ‘pop up’ airport will be launched in Coventry by the end of 2021, according to a Jan. 27 press release.

The airport will be launched in partnership with Hyundai Motor Group, Coventry City Council, the UK government, and Urban Air Port. The funding for the project comes from the UK government’s Future Flight Challenge and totals £1.2 million (about $1.6 million).

How are these airports different from traditional airports?
  • The Air-One airports will be 60 percent smaller than traditional heliports, can be installed in days, and emit net zero carbon emissions, according to Urban Air Port. It will be 14 meters in diameter to accommodate helicopters as well as a wide variety of eVTOL aircraft. While the airport is designed for eVTOL’s it also serves as a hub for other sustainable transportation.

  • “The idea with it is that it's designed to have the approach of a helicopter,” Ricky Sandhu, founder and executive chairman of Urban Air Port, said. “It has an elevated platform, which once you've landed on it, it can move down to the ground level. So it's avoided all the obstacles on rooftops and in cities, and then you that the platform moves down to the grade level, where the vehicle can then be pushed to one of the stands and in the periphery of the airport for charging, for refueling, cleaning, or for passengers. So you have an integrated hangar. You have integrated maintenance. You have integrated staff training, passenger processing, and maybe even a bookshop and cafe.”

  • These airports will be able to operate completely off-grid, according to Urban Air Port. Their ability to operate with zero carbon emissions will also help the UK advance its climate change efforts.
“Urban Air Port has the potential to revolutionize cities across the world, making them more connected, cleaner, and accelerating our green economic recovery,” Gary Cutts, UK Research and Innovation Future Flight Challenge director, said. “This project epitomizes the purpose of the Future Flight Challenge fund – it is innovation at its finest – and will help to position the UK at the vanguard of electric urban air mobility.”


Read the full story here.
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