NASA’s Mars helicopter has proven so successful, the space agency plans to build a larger, more compact chopper.
After 70 flights, the Ingenuity helicopter – the first ship to make a powerful wind, controlled flight on another planet – crashed in the Martian dunes in January 2024. But its unexpected success (engineers expected that it could make five flights) inspired ideas. design and planning for what the agency calls its “Mars Chopper.”
“On top of exploration, such a helicopter can carry scientific instruments to study terrain rovers without reaching,” NASA said.
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The short video below shows the helicopter with six rotors, compared to Ingenuity’s two. Such a design can allow the craftsman to have the ability to lift, and travel great distances.
Flying on Mars is scary. The Martian atmosphere is thin, with a volume of about one percent of Earth’s. This makes it difficult to generate the lift needed for flight. In order to go airborne, Ingenuity spun its four-legged leaves at a temperature that burns 2,400 times every minute. But the simple design wasn’t just successful – it was very educational
“Intelligence has given us the confidence and data to envision a future flight to Mars,” Teddy Tzanetos, Ingenuity’s project manager, said in a NASA statement.
“Intelligence has given us the confidence and data to envision a future flight to Mars.”
The futuristic chopper design is still in its infancy, and some aspects are already changing. But the current concept weighs 20 pounds more than Ingenuity and can travel two more miles per day, NASA explained. By reference, Ingenuity’s longest flight was 2,310 feet (704 meters).
In its search for the future of the Red Planet, the space agency is also exploring a Mars plane, which can take off and land vertically, like a helicopter. Both the chopper and the airplane would be a great boon for Martian exploration, a world that was once flooded, can hold large underground lakes today, and can hide secrets in caves.
In the outer world without railways, these ships can be important pioneers.