NASA Is Making robotic helicopter that would act as Mars scout ~ DepoTech

The robotic rovers driving across the surface of Mars are limited by what their onboard cameras can see.

If they could see further ahead, they might be able to travel three times as far in a single Martian day, enabling them to better find sites to explore and gather more information, faster, than they can today.

To speed up the rovers’ work, NASA is considering sending a robotic helicopter to Mars that could act as a scout for their explorations.

The current solution being considered by NASA pertains to deploying small robotic helicopters. These helicopters will be about the size of a box of tissue papers. They would scout the land and have this information ready for the next generation of rovers to come. The plan is in its proof-of-concept phase as of now. These helicopters will be used for flying ahead and using sensors and camera to point out any obstacles and highlight amazing features thus enabling NASA to identify the best route.

The tricky part of the project is to make a design that is capable of performing the task at hand. According to NASA, it has to be lightweight (upper limit of 1kg) and must sport a pair of blades that counter-rotate and measure a span of 1.1 meter, which is surely large, however, this has to be done owing to the very thin Martian atmosphere. The rotors have to be large enough to be able to generate the required lift. Even with this size, the blades should spin at 2,400 RPM.

So far, JPL engineers have built a proof-of-concept prototype and have been testing it in a 25-foot vacuum chamber.

Because of the difference between the atmosphere on Earth and on Mars, the helicopter’s blades would have to spin at about 2,400 rpm to provide lift, NASA said.

“The system is designed to fly for two to three minutes every day,” said Bob Balaram, a chief engineer at JPL. “There's a solar panel on the top and that provides us with enough energy for that short flight, as well as to keep us warm through the night. So in those two to three minutes, we expect to have daily flights of about half a kilometer or so.”

For now the JPL team is focused on relentlessly testing the helicopter.

“Because this thing is going to take off every day and land every day, we want to make sure we have a bulletproof landing system, and landing is the riskiest part of any mission,” Balaram said.