The Mars Helicopter Mission
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| NASA |
When NASA launches its subsequent rover to Mars, the vehicle may have a small helicopter alongside with it. NASA introduced today that it is going to be sending a small self reliant flying chopper — aptly named the Mars Helicopter — with the approaching Mars 2020 rover. The helicopter will try to fly through the Martian air to look if cars may even levitate on Mars, where the environment is a hundred times thinner than that of Earth.
The design for the Mars Helicopter has been within the works for the remaining 4 years at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, but the space organization had but to determine if it become absolutely going to send the vehicle to Mars. NASA had to decide if this technology become genuinely possible and if the NASA had enough cash in its finances to include the copter, in line with Spaceflight Now. Now it seems that the NASA has decided that this copter concept should really work.
but even supposing the helicopter fails to fly, it won’t affect the general venture of the Mars 2020 rover — the successor to NASA’s curiosity rover which is already on the red Planet’s surface. but if the Mars Helicopter does indeed fly, it’ll be able to seize an extraordinary bird’s-eye-view of Mars with its cameras, something that’s in no way been finished before. And which can imply it’s feasible to send future flying vehicles to Mars to scout out places which might be difficult to access.
Engineers at JPL have been operating to get the load and shape of the helicopter just right, in order that it could fly through the thin Mars air. the best any helicopter has flown on earth is 40,000 feet high. however the Mars Helicopter will be flying in an atmosphere that’s as thin as altitudes of 100,000 ft on earth, consistent with NASA. So the robot needs to be tiny and mild: it weighs in at just four pounds (1.8 kilograms) on earth and is set the size of a softball. The copter also sports twin blades that rotate 10 instances faster than helicopter’s here on our planet. The plan is for the Mars Helicopter to fly attached to the bottom of the Mars 2020 rover. once the rover lands on the mars’s surface, it'll then discover a proper location to set down the copter, deploy it, after which roll away. subsequently, the helicopter will try to take off, and it’ll have to do the flight completely on its very own, too. since Earth is so far away from Mars, it's going to take several mins to send the helicopter instructions. in the long run, the drone will try to do 5 self reliant flights over a 30-day period; the trips could last as long as ninety seconds. “NASA has a proud history of firsts,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a statement on Friday afternoon, within the center of SpaceX’s Block 5 launch. “The idea of a helicopter flying the skies of any other planet is exciting. The Mars Helicopter holds a lot promise for our future science, discovery, and exploration missions to Mars.” The Mars 2020 rover is slated to launch on top of an Atlas V rocket, made via the United release Alliance, from Cape Canaveral, Florida in July 2020. The spacecraft will then land on Mars in February of 2021