Flight Demonstration and Model Validation of a Prototype Variable-Altitude Venus Aerobot

This paper details a significant milestone toward maturing a buoyant aerial robotic platform, or aerobot, for flight in the Venus clouds. We describe two flights of our subscale altitude-controlled aerobot, fabricated from the materials necessary to survive Venus conditions. During these flights over the Nevada Black Rock Desert, the prototype flew at the identical atmospheric densities as 54–55 km cloud layer altitudes on Venus. We further describe a first-principle aerobot dynamics model, which we validate against the Nevada flight data and subsequently employ to predict the performance of future aerobots on Venus. The aerobot discussed in this paper is under JPL and Aerostar development for an in-situ mission flying multiple circumnavigations of Venus, sampling the chemical and physical properties of the planet’s atmosphere and also remotely sensing surface properties.

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Publication Details

Journal
Journal of Aircraft
Published
2025-09-12
DOI
https://doi.org/10.2514/1.c038314
Citations
1
Primary Topic
Aerospace Engineering and Energy Systems
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
4.99
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article

Flight Demonstration and Model Validation of a Prototype Variable-Altitude Venus Aerobot

Caleb Turner, Carolina Aiazzi, K. H. Baines, P. K. Byrne et al.
1 citations
Journal of Aircraft
Aerospace Engineering and Energy Systems
4.99
article

Flight Demonstration and Model Validation of a Prototype Variable-Altitude Venus Aerobot

Caleb Turner, Carolina Aiazzi, K. H. Baines, P. K. Byrne, Michael Pauken, Jeffery L. Hall, Tim Lachenmeier, Siddharth Krishnamoorthy, Gerald Walsh, Christopher Lim, Carl Leake, Kevin Carlson, J. A. Cutts, Jacob Izraelevitz, Abhinandan Jain, Ashish Goel, Carlos Quintana, Leonard I. Dorsky
article en
1 citations

Abstract

This paper details a significant milestone toward maturing a buoyant aerial robotic platform, or aerobot, for flight in the Venus clouds. We describe two flights of our subscale altitude-controlled aerobot, fabricated from the materials necessary to survive Venus conditions. During these flights over the Nevada Black Rock Desert, the prototype flew at the identical atmospheric densities as 54–55 km cloud layer altitudes on Venus. We further describe a first-principle aerobot dynamics model, which we validate against the Nevada flight data and subsequently employ to predict the performance of future aerobots on Venus. The aerobot discussed in this paper is under JPL and Aerostar development for an in-situ mission flying multiple circumnavigations of Venus, sampling the chemical and physical properties of the planet’s atmosphere and also remotely sensing surface properties.

Journal of AircraftVol. 63(1)
California Institute of Technology (US), Jet Propulsion Laboratory (US), Washington University in St. Louis (US), Tillamook Bay Community College (US)
Openalex Percentile: Top 5%
Aerospace Engineering and Energy Systems
4.99
DOISourceOpenAlex
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