A flight out of this world

Rovers have roamed its alien terrain, scooping up rock samples and searching for signs of microbial life in basins once awash with water. But in the nearly 30 years that NASA has been sending small robotic vehicles to Mars-the space agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has operated five rovers on the red planet since 1997-the probes, inching along at a turtle-like pace, have explored only a small portion of the dusty, cold, desert world. Now, a University of Miami College of Engineering researcher has designed a new Mars explorer that will be faster and more advanced than any other that has ever probed the planet. GeCheng Zha 's Mars Aerial Ground and Global Intelligent Explorer, or MAGGIE , is not a land rover at all, but a solar-powered, remote-controlled electric fixed-wing airplane that will soar 3,280 feet in the air, reach a top speed of 135 miles per hour, and take off and land vertically, deploying a suite of sophisticated scientific instruments that could help solve some of the mysteries of Mars. Science fiction? Make-believe? Far from it. MAGGIE, which would have solar panels mounted atop its 26-foot wingspan, is closer to reality than not. Zha is perfecting electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) technology that would minimize power consumption by generating lift from the innovative aircraft's wings and propellers.  "It's deflected slipstream technology enabled by a co-flow jet airfoil, and a series of micro-compressors embedded into the wings is the key to its success," said Zha, a professor of aerospace engineering and director of the Aerodynamics and Computational Fluid Dynamics Lab at the College of Engineering.