NASA describes a larger helicopter for future Mars missions

NASA had an impressive success with the helicopter of ingenuity that tested on the surface of March for weeks now. With the success of the Helicopter of Ingenuity, NASA engineers are already examining the larger and more capable Rotorcraft concepts that can be used for future missions.

NASA hopes to continue to steal the helicopter of ingenuity and lead more missions. Data The helicopter takes care of the stages of the planning of future helicopter designs by engineers at JPL, the AMES research center and the airfirmation. NASA is already considering a larger flying vehicle called Science Mars helicopter.

It would be a helicopter of six rotor weighing about 30 kilograms. To compare, ingenuity is much smaller than just 1.8 kilograms. With its extra mass, the science science helicopter could carry up to five kilograms of scientific payload and steal up to 10 kilometers by mission. Currently, NASA studies scientific applications and what kind of science would be activated by adding the air dimension to a mission.

NASA says they have a flight capacity would allow it to examine “special regions” of astrobiological interest without risking contamination. A mission that has been described could see a most important Mars helicopter visiting an exit chain called Mawrth Vallis which is difficult for rovers to access. It would collect samples in several places and referred them for analysis later.

A mystery is exactly how much it would have cost to build the Helicopter of Science Mars or when a flight opportunity for the helicopter could occur. White paper describing the Grand Science Mars helicopter also had a simpler helicopter design that would be a reinforced version of ingenuity. The team stated that it has mass and sufficiently low volume and should be taken into account in all future launch opportunities on the surface of March.

However, NASA officials confirmed that they did not consider the addition of the helicopter of the next Lander mission. The following mission is the Lander return sample that is part of the March sample return program currently planned for the launch at the earliest of 2026.

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