The helicopter has flown a cumulative range of almost one kilometer, consisting of 266 meters in one flight. Data gathered by Ingenuity is supporting planning of a future helicopter design by engineers at JPL, NASAs Ames Research Center and AeroVironment. The Mars Science Helicopter would be a hexacopter, or six-rotor helicopter, with a mass of about 30 kilograms. Mars Science Helicopter could carry as much as five kilograms of science payloads and fly up to 10 kilometers per sortie.
An easier helicopter style included in the white paper, essentially a scaled-up version of Ingenuity, “is sufficiently low mass and low volume that it ought to be considered in all future launch chances to Mars surface area,” the paper concluded.

WASHINGTON– With the Ingenuity helicopter continuing to show its abilities on Mars, NASA engineers are examining concepts for bigger, more capable rotorcraft that could be flown on future missions.
Resourcefulness performed its eighth flight on Mars June 21, taking a trip 160 meters and landing at a new website 133.5 meters from the Perseverance rover. The flight, which lasted 77.4 seconds, was the 3rd given that Ingenuity shifted from its initial five-flight technology presentation objective, showing it could fly in the thin Martian atmosphere, to acting as an operations demonstration working in conjunction with Perseverance.
Those flights are set up to continue for at least a few more months. “Part of what is going to be happening in the coming months are extra flights that show how this dance can work in between the helicopter and the rover,” stated Ken Farley, primary researcher for the Mars 2020 objective, during a June 21 conference of NASAs Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group (MEPAG).
That consists of, he said, acquiring images of locations that the rover can not travel, such as a region called Seitah that is too rough for the rover to traverse. Helicopter images could likewise be utilized to develop “surface meshes” to enable longer drives by the rover by providing it information about terrain the rovers own cams, mounted on a mast, can not see.
” That is going to continue for at least couple of more months, with a cadence of a number of flights,” he said. “That is the level that we can easily make this coordination work.”
” We hope to fly many, numerous more,” said Teddy Tzanetos of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, part of the Ingenuity team, at MEPAG. The helicopter has flown a cumulative range of almost one kilometer, including 266 meters in one flight.
The Mars Science Helicopter would be a hexacopter, or six-rotor helicopter, with a mass of about 30 kilograms. Mars Science Helicopter might carry as much as five kilograms of science payloads and fly up to 10 kilometers per sortie.
“Were trying to take a look at the science applications: what science is made it possible for by having the aerial measurement added,” he said. That consists of taking a trip to areas unattainable to rovers, such as the sides of cliffs and into caves.
In a white paper submitted as part of the ongoing planetary science decadal survey, researchers determined a number of applications for the Mars Science Helicopter, from studies of Martian geology and atmosphere to examination of “unique regions” of astrobiological interest without threat of contamination.
One notional mission described in the paper is to check out an outflow channel called Mawrth Vallis that is challenging for rovers to gain access to, gather samples at numerous areas and then return them to a lander for analysis. “Were open to ideas and new principles,” Tzanetos stated.
He did not talk about potential expenses or flight chances for Mars Science Helicopter, although the white paper keeps in mind that “there are practical roles for [Mars Science Helicopter] across a variety of mission classes,” consisting of NASAs Discovery and New Frontiers classes. An easier helicopter design included in the white paper, essentially a scaled-up variation of Ingenuity, “is sufficiently low mass and low volume that it need to be thought about in all future launch opportunities to Mars surface area,” the paper concluded.
Firm authorities stated previously this year they were not thinking about including a helicopter to its next lander objective, the Sample Return Lander that becomes part of the Mars Sample Return program and is arranged for launch no earlier than 2026.