Big Blue: Inflatable Wing Alternatives and Advanced Control Designs

The BIG BLUE (Baseline Inflatable-Wing Glider, Balloon Launched Unmanned Experiment) project is a NASA Workforce Development project to expose talented undergraduate students to careers in aerospace engineering. The technical objective of BIG BLUE is to demonstrate feasibility of inflatable-wing designs for Mars exploration. Students are exposed to aerospace careers by designing, fabricating, assmbling, testing and conducting a high-altitude flight experiment. In this third year of the BIG BLUE project, inflatable wing alternatives will be considered, along with new flight and mission control designs. To date over 100 students have participated in BIG BLUE. Technical results have been (and will be) presented at conferences and published in archival journals.