Because instead of being an alien-populated spacecraft, it could just be the newest and promising toy of American researchers.

To date, many ingenious lunar and Mars rovers have been built and used. However, all of these spacecraft have one major drawback: they roll on the ground. And that while many celestial bodies have uneven surfaces, which are difficult for robbers to access. Now American researchers have come up with a promising solution: a real flying saucer!

Floating Rover

Researchers have in a new study built a floating rover. And such a rover has a lot of potential. According to the researchers, such floating rovers could one day explore the moon, asteroids and other ‘airless’ planets, which use the electric fields of celestial bodies to float instead of fuel.

Electric field

The moon – and other airless celestial bodies – does not have an atmosphere like our earth. This bombards the lunar surface with solar rays and plasma, creating an electric field. On the moon, this surface charge is strong enough to cause dust to float more than 1 meter above the ground, just as static electricity can make a person’s hair stand on end.

glider

Engineers have been thinking for some time about using this natural surface charge to fly gliders, for example. In that case, the wings would have to be made of the material Mylar, which naturally has the same charge as the surfaces on airless celestial bodies. The researchers reasoned that this equal charge would cause the plane to be ‘repelled’, lifted off the ground and then hover.

Good idea?

It sounds like a good idea. The only drawback is that such gliders can probably only be used on small asteroids. Larger, planetary celestial bodies have a stronger, counteracting gravity. And so it is more difficult to get a glider up on these heavenly bodies.

Flying saucer

However, the new floating rover differs from the glider in one important way. And that’s that the ingenious flying saucer uses tiny ion beams to propel the vehicle and amplify the surface’s natural charge. It means that by means of ‘ionic thrusters’ a relatively large repulsive force is generated between the vehicle and the ground, pushing the flying saucer upwards. During experiments, the researchers even managed to make the flying saucer, which weighs one kilogram, hover one centimeter above the ground.

Promising design

We may well see similar flying saucers on the moon or other celestial bodies in the future. Because it is a promising design. “With a hovering rover, you don’t have to worry about wheels or moving parts,” said researcher Paulo Lozano. “The terrain of an asteroid may also be uneven. As long as the conditions allow us to levitate a rover, we can even explore rough and unexplored areas.” In addition, the floating rover hardly uses any power. “It takes very little energy to generate a lot of voltage,” Lozano continues. “In fact, the required power is so small that it does it almost for free and for nothing.”

In the meantime, the researchers have already started tinkering. Because even though their flying saucer could hang an inch above the ground, future robbers are supposed to climb to greater heights. “We suspect we can get a lot higher with improved modeling,” concludes Lozano.