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[i]"I hadn't thought of an analogue comparison like that, but the Dragonfly is the next step after Ingenuity's first flight," says Elizabeth "Zibi" Turtle, the principal investigator at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. "It will be the first [aerial] vehicle to carry its entire scientific payload from place to place." Like the early polar aviation pioneers, NASA engineers realised how aerial vehicles could revolutionise the exploration of new worlds. Iconic machines like the Martian landers Viking and Curiosity and orbiters like Titan's Cassini will continue to play key roles in exploration where there is a suitable atmosphere, but there might be other options. Robotic and controlled dirigibles, helicopters, drones and even inflatable propeller planes (all proposals by NASA scientists) could quickly gather high-quality data about large areas of a planet's surface, avoid hazardous terrain, collect up-close imagery impossible from a rover or orbit, and see mission targets from different perspectives. Aerial vehicles like these can also go where rovers can't – mountains, peaks, and even the inhospitable surface of Venus. The problem for NASA's engineers is that the environment on each planet imposes a different set of constraints on the type of aircraft, its payload and capabilities. The technology available to the engineers poses similar constraints.[/i]
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