NASA studying larger Mars helicopters
WASHINGTON — With the Ingenuity helicopter continuing to demonstrate its abilities on Mars, NASA engineers are examining concepts for larger, more capable rotorcraft that could be flown on future missions.
Ingenuity performed its eighth flight on Mars June 21, traveling 160 meters and landing at a new site 133.5 meters from the Perseverance rover. The flight, which lasted 77.4 seconds, was the third since Ingenuity shifted from its original five-flight technology demonstration mission, proving it could fly in the thin Martian atmosphere, to serving as an operations demonstration working in conjunction with Perseverance.
Those flights are scheduled to continue for at least a few more months. “Part of what is going to be happening in the coming months are additional flights that demonstrate how this dance can work between the helicopter and the rover,” said Ken Farley, chief scientist for the Mars 2020 mission, during a June 21 meeting of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group (MEPAG).
That includes, he said, obtaining imagery of places that the rover cannot travel, such as a region called Seitah that is too rough for the rover to traverse. Helicopter images could also be used to create “terrain meshes” to enable longer drives by the rover by giving it information about terrain the rover’s own cameras, mounted on a mast, cannot see.
