Renewable energy for Mars habitats is of key interest for future crewed missions. However, the low solar irradiation and low atmospheric pressure on Mars pose serious challenges to exploiting these resources reliably. In this chapter, we investigate the technical feasibility of a soft-kite-based airborne wind energy system and its potential to power a subsurface Mars habitat in combination with photovoltaics and short-term electrical storage. We propose a soft kite for its high surface-to-mass ratio, compact packing volume, adaptability to the available wind resource, and, thus, high capacity factor. First, the siting of the habitat is outlined, and the wind resources are quantified in terms of the wind speed probability distribution at the operational height of the system for different seasonal periods. Then, a performance model for the pumping cycle operation is developed to compute the power curve of the airborne wind energy system. Combining this with the wind statistics, a process for predicting the electricity yield at the habitat location is developed, which is then used to size all components of the hybrid power system to meet the continuous electrical power demand of 10 kW of the envisioned habitat.

Although technologically challenging, airborne wind energy systems have several advantages over conventional wind turbines that make them an interesting option for deployment on Mars. However, the environmental conditions on the red planet are quite different from those on Earth. The atmosphere’s density is about 100 times lower, and gravity is about one-third, which affects the tethered flight operation and harvesting performance of an airborne wind energy system. In this chapter, we investigate in how far the physics of tethered flight differs on the two planets, specifically from the perspective of airborne wind energy harvesting. The derived scaling laws provide a means to systematically adapt a specific system concept to operation on Mars using computation. Sensitivity analyses are conducted for two different sites on Mars, drawing general conclusions about the technical feasibility of using kites for harvesting wind power on the red planet.