An off-Earth helicopter just hooked up with its traveling companion getting ready for its trip to Mars.
Engineers at NASA`s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, attached the tiny Mars Helicopter to the agency’s car-size Mars 2020 rover on August 28, agency officials announced.
The duo will launch together in July 2020 and touch down just inside the Red Planet`s Jezero Crater in February 2021. When it gets on Mars, the solar-powered, 4-lb. (1.8 kilograms) helicopter will detach and begin flying test flights
“Our job is to prove that autonomous, controlled flight can be executed in the extremely thin Martian atmosphere,” Mars Helicopter project manager, of JPL, said in a statement.
“Since our helicopter is designed as a flight test of experimental technology, it carries no science instruments,” she added. “But if we prove powered flight on Mars can work, we look forward to the day when Mars helicopters can play an important role in future explorations of the Red Planet.”
The helicopters could serve as scouts for robots or human pioneers on Mars. Red Planet rotorcraft could also carry instruments and conduct a variety of science work of their own, NASA officials have said.
The helicopter is now called Mars 2020, but it will soon get a catchier through a student naming competition. When in place, it will hunt for signs of long-dead Red Planet life in Jezero Crater, which hosted a river delta in the ancient past. The rover will also characterize the site’s geology, collect and cache samples for future return to Earth and demonstrate gear that will generate oxygen from the carbon-dioxide-dominated Martian air, among other tasks.
NASA plans to launch another rotorcraft soon as well called Dragonfly. It will soar through the thick atmosphere of Saturn’s huge moon Titan. The life-hunting Dragonfly is scheduled to lift off in 2026 and land on Titan’s frigid surface in 2034.
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