What if man one day managed to live on Mars?
Among the challenges to be met is that of energy.
Currently, the robots that touched Martian soil were powered by solar energy, but due to the large amount of dust on Mars, solar panels get dirty quickly.
In addition, the red planet receives only 43% of sunlight compared to Earth.
Solar panels would not be enough.
In an attempt to alleviate the problem, ESA, the European Space Agency, launched a competition to find a way to generate renewable energy on Mars taking into account all the constraints that this implied;
the distance from the Earth, the impossibility of transporting too much material, the little sunshine compared to our planet, but also the powerful winds of Mars.
Take advantage of the Martian winds
It was there that a team of researchers from the University of Delft in the Netherlands came up with the idea of flying kites attached to drums to generate energy.
The idea is to take advantage of the power of Martian winds with kites.
While flying, the kites will turn a drum which will create energy, a bit like the terrestrial wind turbines.
In practice, these kites will have to be particularly large to generate enough energy, but especially so that they can cope with the strong winds and the low density of the atmosphere that reigns on Mars.
“The higher wind speeds and the lower density balance out to a certain extent, but not completely, so we also have to increase the wing area quite drastically,” says Roland Schmehl, one of the researchers. from the University of Delft.
We would therefore need kites of about 50 square meters.
Add to that 70 square meter solar panels and it will be possible to produce 127 MWh per year which is enough to power 20 Dutch houses or 5 American houses, enough to power a Martian base.
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