Besides next gen helicopters for Mars and Titan, here are 2 prelim. studies funded by the NIAC (NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts) program this year.
Mars Aerial and Ground Global Intelligent Explorer (MAGGIE) is a fixed wing solar powered vertical take-off/landing aircraft for Mars from Coflow Jet, LLC.
Range: 179 km at 1 km altitude
Total range per Martian year: 16,048 km
This next early-stage technology concept study funded by NASA will pioneer a new approach to return a sample from the surface of Venus. The mission will include a fixed wing solar aircraft, carbon monoxide rocket technology to make propellant from the Venus atmosphere and high-temperature surface systems.
The Mars Aerial and Ground Global Intelligent Explorer (MAGGIE) aircraft uses some novel technology being developed by Coflow Jet, LLC, for use in commercial and military aircraft.
In a CFJ airfoil, a high energy jet is injected tangentially on the suction surface near the leading edge and the same amount of mass flow is sucked in near the trailing edge. This results in significantly higher lift than a conventional airfoil.
The Dragonfly astrobiology mission by NASA and APL will deploy a large rotorcraft on Saturn's moon Titan.
The quadcopter will host multiple instruments to assess Titan's microbial habitability and study its prebiotic chemistry as it hops across multiple diverse locations.
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