Mars Helicopter Scout Can Make Things Easier For Rovers

Mars rovers have collected a lot of data about the Red Planet but its not like they don’t run into problems up there. The surface of Mars is extremely tricky to navigate and this can make it tough for the rover to travel long distances in a Martian day. The solution being proposed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory involves using an autonomous drone dubbed as the Mars Helicopter. It would fly ahead of the rover and capture images while would then help the NASA engineers back on Earth to plan the best possible driving route for the rover.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory has proposed the Mars Helicopter scout as an add-on for rovers of the future. It estimates that the scout can potentially tripe the distances that the rover can travel in a single Martian day. Moreover the scout is also going to provide a new level of visual information based on which engineers can decide which sites to explore.

Another job for the helicopter would be to discover the best places from which the rover can collect samples and rocks for a cache which would then be picked up by a next generation rover. The Mars Helicopter will weigh around 2.2 pounds and measure 3.6 feet from the tip of one blade to the other. The prototype’s body has the shape of a “medium-size cubic tissue box.”

NASA has only performed a proof-of-concept technology demonstration at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It doesn’t provide a timeline for when one might be sent up to Mars.

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: General
Tags: mars, NASA