about time.
I remember a NASA Mars aircraft from around a decade ago, I think it was called Ares. I think it was going to be rocket powered. They (NASA) built it, and did a bunch of tests with it, but the Mars mission never got the green light. Ended up being another waste of tax payers money by NASA...and they wonder why they never get full funding.

@Derek Howe: I'm so sick and tired of all this honking about "taxpayers money". So the people working on Ares (scientists, engineers, others) did not make a living, spending their income and contributing to their local economies? Well they did. On top, they ordered stuff from companies to develop parts of the Ares. That kept these companies going. Complaints? Companies that kept employing people who drew a salary that made the economy move. Complaints? On top, companies developing technologies that enabled them to keep up with the state of the art instead of shuttering and closing operations because of someone saving "taxpayers money" which - when you look closely - turns out to be pennies. Wanna save these pennies and move to a place with no taxes AT ALL? The marketplace doing its very best, enabling proud gun owners to live their "free" lives carrying their gun even to just buy some milk (if available)? Welcome to Somalia. Enjoy! And keep dreaming about a world in which no taxpayer penny ever goes to projects that seem to not return a benefit to you (the casual observer), and keep dreaming about living in a country with an amazing high tech sector. Sleep well, on top of you pillow with your saved tax money. I have to say I am proud to pay taxes in a country worth paying taxes for. I love every bit of it.

Students?
Hey - lets get a bunch of kids, not even out of school yet, and let them build something for Mars.
Fun idea, but doomed to the stupid failure it deserves.
If this was a real project, actual trained engineers would be working on it, but since it's just kids, that means this is a fake "feel good" public relations thing that is not seriously planned for any real deployment.

funny one.
Its mass is still 1.8 kg on Mars (the same as on Earth).
Its weight (a force) is approximately 17.65 Newtons on earth and 6.68N on mars.
So this is a drone, but the orbiter/lander (or any other unmanned space vehicles) isn't?? lol.

Prandtl-m ? I think it should be called a Boomerang, though I guess it is not going to come back.......

A lot of tax money is wasted "reinventing the wheel". Also, money is "stored" in programs. Work done on those programs is wasted. B-2 is a good example of this.

The flight simulator X-plane has a Mars emulator, complete with correct atmosphere, gravity and aa aerodynamically correctly flyable aeroplane, and is complete with all necessary tools to design, develop and build models, even down to having a finite element analysis package to tune your aerofoils.
Not for the faint-hearted!

See movie Conquest of Space showing Flying wing for return from space from 1950s.

@ Bewalt Yes, the money spent on Ares did help the businesses that made parts for it. But my point is that it was all for nothing. When it comes down to money, I view private companies and public (government) companies differently. Because one is uses money they have acquired through their profits. While the other is uses our tax money...something that shouldn't be squandered.
I understand that everyone should pay taxes, they're a necessary evil. But what irritates me is all the government waste that goes on, then they claim they need to raise taxes on everyone. When they need to be focused on the other side of the coin...Cutting spending.

From Wikipedia: "The highest atmospheric density on Mars is equal to that found 35 km (22 mi)[134] above Earth's surface."
Highest known plane altitude record on earth: A little under 10 miles high.
However, we can make that work on Mars, since Mars rarely warms up above freezing, we heat up Venus to boiling, bring them near each other, Mars will condense some new atmosphere and you take it from there, my work is done.