It's not a scaled down model or a toy – Tina Cunningham holds a 32-inch "winglet" that engineers at NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base hope will be the first aircraft to fly on Mars. According to engineer/pilot Robert "Red" Jensen (seen in the background of the Armstrong model shop), the instrument-carrying flying wings will be folded to fit in 4x4x12-inch spaces and used as ballast on a Mars rover heat shield before being deployed at 12,000 feet over the surface of Mars. A swarm of winglets will fly 30 to 40 miles at a speed of 300-400 knots, providing vital information about Mars, which has no reliable magnetic poles or GPS to help explorers. They will glide toward a common area, where they will crash, Jensen said. To test them here on earth, the winglets, named PRANDTL-m(ars), will be dropped from a weather balloon at the altitude of around 100,000 feet to simulate the Martian atmosphere.

Tina Fisher Cunningham

Robert "Red" Jensen