- A pint-sized helicopter is making the trip to Mars alongside the Perseverance rover.
- The helicopter will conduct autonomous flight tests in the thin Martian atmosphere.
- If successful, the helicopter could be used as a proof of concept for drone missions to Mars.
NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover is obviously the star of the Mars 2020 mission. The rover is designed to be the most capable piece of hardware ever sent to the Red Planet and will have the ability to take samples from the Martian soil, look for evidence of ancient life and even pack soil samples for their eventual return to Earth. . We look forward to years of incredible discovery once the rover lands in early 2021, but it’s not the only robot making the journey.
The Mars Helicopter is a small double helix helicopter that will travel to Mars in the belly of the Perseverance rover. It will be deployed to the surface after the rover is oriented, and NASA has just released a short video showing what the helicopter is expected to be capable of.
The first thing you should know about the Mars Helicopter is that it has no scientific objective related to the exploration of Mars. It is more a proof of concept than anything else, proving that it is possible to fly in the incredibly thin Martian atmosphere.
The plane will take approximately one Martian month to perform its tests, and the team believes they will be able to squeeze five flights during that brief window. Each flight will be more demanding than the last, pushing the helicopter to perform ever greater feats.
The first flight will be a simple climb and descent, testing the plane’s most basic flight capabilities. Then, as the team gathers performance data, they’ll send it over larger distances from the rover, and then return it. The key to all of this is that, because there is no way to control the helicopter in real time from such a great distance, its movements have to be autonomous, which means that the helicopter will be in charge of navigating the skies of the Red Planet. while your engineers eagerly await the result on Earth.
If successful, the Mars Helicopter will be the first plane humans have flown into another world. It’s a pretty huge milestone on its own, but what’s even more exciting is that it could open the door for future missions where rovers are replaced by flying drones capable of covering the ground much more quickly than relatively slow-moving rovers. . Drones that could travel to new areas of a planet could quickly conduct more science in a shorter period of time, and the Mars Helicopter will demonstrate whether such a thing is even possible with current technology.
Mike Wehner has reported on technology and video games for the past decade, covering the latest news and trends in virtual reality, handheld devices, smartphones, and future technology. Most recently, Mike served as technical editor at The Daily Dot, and has appeared on USA Today, Time.com, and countless other websites and in print. His love of reporting is second only to his addiction to games.
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