Knudsen-Pump-Based Propulsion for Atmospheric and Martian Exploration

Humankind’s understanding of certain critical regions of our solar system, such as Earth’s mesosphere and the Martian atmosphere, is hindered by available propulsion technologies. Although carbon dioxide cooling in the mesosphere has important implications for climate change, and the surface of Mars contains untold discoveries for science including the origin of life, we remain unable to traverse these regions effectively. In the mesosphere, the air is too thin and the altitude too low for traditional strategies such as high-altitude balloons and orbiting satellites, respectively; on Mars, the ground-based rovers currently employed are heavy, encounter obstacles, and move slowly. We propose a new mechanism of flight based on microscale Knudsen pumps - solid-state centimeter-scale miniature aerial vehicles that create gas jets using light source heating. These devices will leverage our recently demonstrated nanocardboard plate mechanical metamaterials, composed of nanometer-thickness face sheets that are connected by micrometer-height rectangular channel-like webbing, to induce a pressure differential across the envelope of a three-dimensional thin hollow chamber comprised of the nanocardboards. In this scheme, light incident on the outside of the chamber will induce a small temperature difference along the rectangular channels, driving molecular air motion due to the temperature gradient along the low thermally conductive material and resulting in a small static pressure buildup inside the chamber. Our calculations indicate that this pressure buildup can accelerate gas molecules out of a nozzle mechanism and produce jet velocities of up to 100 m/s, sufficient to provide both lift and thrust. Importantly, the Knudsen principle is optimally suited for rarified atmospheres, such as those found in Earth’s mesosphere or Mars. These microflyers would be capable of carrying microsensors, communication technology, or imagers, enabling us to study these hitherto inaccessible regions of Earth’s mesosphere and the Martian atmosphere.

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