The Mars 2020 mission is planned for launch next year, and nesting inside the high-tech new rover will be a high-tech helicopter designed to fly in the planet’s nearly non-existent atmosphere.
NASA has finally flown its specialised helicopter due to take flight on the red planet in the Mars 2020 mission. Weighing in at no more than 4 pounds (1.8 kilograms), the helicopter is bound to explore Mars' practically non-existent atmosphere.
The Mars Helicopter Scout (MHS) is a planned robotic helicopter that will test the technology to scout interesting targets for study on Mars, and plan the best driving route for future Mars rovers. It is a technology demonstrator that will form the foundation on which more capable helicopters can be developed for aerial exploration of Mars and other planetary targets with atmosphere.
But first it needs to go through extensive testing set to see how the helicopter could operate on Mars rough conditions, including its cold temperatures featuring nights as low as minus 130 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 90 degrees Celsius).
The 4-lb. (1.8 kilograms) aircraft, a technology demonstration that will launch with NASA's next Mars rover in July 2020, aced its first-ever test flight under Red Planet conditions, agency officials announced Thursday (March 28).
"Gearing up for that first flight on Mars, we have logged over 75 minutes of flying time with an engineering model, which was a close approximation of our helicopter," said MiMi Aung, project manager for the Mars Helicopter at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
"But this recent test of the flight model was the real deal. This is our helicopter bound for Mars. We needed to see that it worked as advertised."
The researchers had to create the right conditions to mimic the thin Martian atmosphere. A such, the Mars Helicopter's first flight was followed up by a second in a vacuum chamber.
The team also outfitted the helicopter with a "gravity offload system" — a motorized lanyard that pulled upward on the craft continuously so that it experienced Mars gravity during flight. (The gravitational pull on the Red Planet's surface is just 40 percent as strong as the tug we feel here on Earth.)
The results were encouraging, to say the least.
"The gravity offload system performed perfectly, just like our helicopter," Mars Helicopter test conductor Teddy Tzanetos, test conductor for the Mars Helicopter at JPL.
"We only required a 2-inch [5 centimeters] hover to obtain all the data sets needed to confirm that our Mars helicopter flies autonomously as designed in a thin, Mars-like atmosphere; there was no need to go higher. It was a heck of a first flight."
"Getting our helicopter into an extremely thin atmosphere is only part of the challenge," said Teddy Tzanetos.
"To truly simulate flying on Mars we have to take away two-thirds of Earth's gravity, because Mars' gravity is that much weaker."
Everything had to be tested as the next flight will be on the red planet itself.
"The next time we fly, we fly on Mars," said Aung, who manages the project at JPL, in a news release.
"Watching our helicopter go through its paces in the chamber, I couldn't help but think about the historic vehicles that have been in there in the past. The chamber hosted missions from the Ranger Moon probes to the Voyagers to Cassini, and every Mars rover ever flown. To see our helicopter in there reminded me we are on our way to making a little chunk of space history as well."
An engineering model that was very close to final has over an hour of time in the air, but these two brief test flights were the first and last time the tiny craft will take flight until it does so on the distant planet
The main goal is to show that little drones can indeed explore Mars from the air. Success could pave the way for ambitious future missions that involve fleets of helicopters doing scouting activities for rovers or conducting science work on their own, NASA officials have said.