MARS — NASA's Mars 2020 mission will include a mini helicopter that is set to be the first heavier-than-air vehicle to fly within the Red Planet's thin atmosphere.
According to NASA, an autonomous rotorcraft called the Mars Helicopter will fly with the Mars Rover in 2020. The small helicopter will be carrying a camera to capture photos of the Martian surface for transmission back to Earth.
The atmospheric pressure on the surface the rover is targeted to land on is equivalent to 100,000 feet above the surface of the Earth — over twice as high as any helicopter has reached.
To generate enough lift, the Mars Helicopter's main body will be the size of a softball and weigh just four pounds.
It will fly up to 15 feet off the surface using two sets of four-feet-long rotor blades spinning at 2,400 rotations per minute — ten times faster than any Earth helicopter.
The Mars Helicopter will attempt up to five flights, each time flying a little farther and lasting up to 90 seconds.
A solar array will recharge the lithium-ion batteries that will be used to rotate the blades and keep the vehicle warm through the frigid Martian night.
Scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory say that if the rotorcraft works as planned, future missions to Mars could deploy more helicopters to extend the reach of the landers they arrive on.
