The future looks bright for helicopter exploration of Mars. Expect NASA to send more helicopters to different regions of the planet.
Ingenuity met all its goals and more. It was initially intended to perform five flights up to 90 seconds long each in 30 days. It performed well beyond that, with its 33rd flight taking place on September 24th, 2022, over 18 months since the mission landed on Mars.
“These Sample Recovery Helicopters, with wheels instead of feet, and a small manipulator arm with a two-fingered gripper, will, if needed, carry precious sample tubes from a sample cache depot back to the Mars ascent vehicle for launch back to Earth,” Balaram wrote. A rover’s reach is limited, but helicopters can greatly improve the reach of exploration by rovers, and it might be hard to imagine future rover missions to the planet without helicopters as part of the mission design. Helicopters can act as route-finders in advance of giving the rover travel instructions. They can examine areas for sampling desirability. They can hover next to features like crater walls and even explore lava tubes.
Helicopters will improve image resolution, too. The MRO has a powerful camera system that has imaged almost the entire surface of Mars. It’s led to all kinds of discoveries on Mars and has helped choose landing spots for surface missions. But a much cheaper, less sophisticated camera on a helicopter can image specific areas of Mars’ surface with higher resolution than MRO or any other orbiter. And for much cheaper.
with the ability to carry almost 5 kg of science payloads is also in early conceptual and design stages,” wrote Balaram.Mars Science Helicopter: Compelling Science Enabled by an Aerial Platform,The NASA MSH white paper considered two rotorcraft concepts; a coaxial design and a larger hexacopter design. Image Credit: NASA.
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