Marching in balloon

1989/10/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Astronautika

The stars of our planetary system have often been analyzed by automatic probes on the surface. So were the Moon series probes sent to the Moon or the vikings sent to Mars. These probes are very useful for data collection, but have two main problems. On the one hand, they cannot move around the rest area and on the other, they can only rest in flat regions.

The great Soviet explorations that must be carried out on Mars in the next decade will use balloons to avoid these two drawbacks.

The balloons will be filled with helium or hydrogen. The heat of the Sun will heat these gases in the morning, they will expand and the winds of Mars will take them from one place to another. At night, when the environment is cool, the gas will be compressed from inside the balloon and the balloon will fall to the ground at rest until the next day.

The balloons will have a height of 20 m and weigh about 30 kg. The balloons will circulate about 30 m high and the transported cameras will be able to take very precise images of the surface of Mars.