The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration will consider sending another helicopter to Mars. The new drone will be much larger than its predecessor, Ingenuity, and will surpass its predecessor in all indicators, from weight to the number of blades. However, the main feature of the future system is that it can land independently on the surface of Mars. Engineers have not proposed anything like this before.

Practice shows that flying to Mars is easier than landing a device on the surface. The fates of most Mars stations are fairly safe, but some have been unlucky; They crashed and were cut off from Earth. Engineers often use a descent module equipped with jet engines or a parachute system (usually a combination of the first and the second) to deliver a robot to the surface of the Red Planet. Scientists using the second method delivered the Perseverance rover and the Ingenuity unmanned robot helicopter in 2021.

The Mars helicopter was built under the conditions of a limited budget and mostly from components not intended to operate in open space or in conditions on another planet. However, despite all the difficulties, Ingenuity managed to surprise the scientific community. Instead of five flights, it made 72 flights. It spent just over two hours in the Martian air instead of just a few minutes, covering 17 kilometers during that time.

The history of the Mars drone ended in January 2024, when NASA announced the end of the mission. Reason: One of the blades broke. Inspired by Ingenuity’s success, NASA will consider building another Mars helicopter to continue exploring the Red Planet’s surface from above. About this post newscience Narrated by Theodore Tzanetos (Theodore Tzanetos) from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena (California), where he worked on the Ingenuity project.

The device was called Chopper. Unlike Ingenuity, it will be able to descend from orbit to the surface on its own. The plan is to equip the drone with a jet pack that will activate when it enters the Martian atmosphere, slowing Chopper enough to spin its rotors, begin controlled flight, and carefully choose a landing spot.

This approach has its own challenges and advantages: It complicates the design of the drone, but it also eliminates the need to create a complex soft landing system. This decision will save NASA from the need to carefully select the device’s entry point into the Martian atmosphere, which will allow reducing the mass of the launch vehicle and reducing fuel consumption. The rocket will not need to perform a series of precise maneuvers before approaching the Red Planet, thus saving fuel.

Before realizing the Chopper project, the engineering team will need to overcome the same challenges they faced when creating the Ingenuity helicopter. First, learn how to power and control the drone in a rarefied atmosphere whose density is only 20 grams per cubic meter, 61 times less than the density of Earth’s atmosphere (1,225 kilograms per cubic meter). Second, to persuade NASA management to fund the project.

“At first, even the concept of Ingenuity was considered unrealizable by many in NASA leadership. They said that physics would not allow lifting helicopters into the skies of Mars, but we had to convince them for a long time. Time showed that we were right,” explained Tzanetos.

So far Chopper is little more than a concept. Tzanetos said his team will “fight hard” for NASA to consider the new helicopter option when planning future Mars missions. The engineer himself believes in success.

Tzanetos stated that Chopper will be a six-winged drone weighing 35 kilograms, almost 20 times heavier than Ingenuity. The device will be able to travel three kilometers in a Martian day (Mars’ solar day, called salt, is about 40 minutes longer than the Earth day) and carry between three and five kilograms of scientific payload on board.