NASA developed the Mars helicopter drone

Despite being an achievement in Mars exploration, even Curiosity will be limited to the Red Planet's vision and mobility on the terrain. Helicopter drones will be the solution to this problem.

The maximum height of the camera mounted on NASA's Mars exploration vehicles will determine the visibility of the research projects. Excessive terrain can affect this vision, especially considering the relatively limited size of exploratory models like Curiosity.

The solution from NASA's Jet Laboratory will be the drone. The advantage of unmanned helicopters on Mars is very much: according to NASA, the introduction of drone following explorers "can help triple the distance of the vehicle's exploration in one day. Fire ". Not only will it help create new perspectives to send back to Earth, the introduction of drones and explorers will help to select the exact study sites.

Because the atmosphere on Mars is not as dense as Earth, the drone solution here will also have special technical requirements. Compared to conventional helicopter drones , drone on Mars will have to lose weight, increase the propeller size or speed up the rotation to be able to operate on Red Planet.

Currently, NASA has built test drones of sizes just the size of a paper box. Tests conducted by the Jet Laboratory in the vacuum environment "mimic" the atmosphere at Mars have also been completed. The completed drone model will weigh about 1kg and 1.1m wingspan.

If NASA could actually bring drones to Mars, these auxiliary drone models would operate on solar power. With just 3 minutes of daily activity and a maximum flying distance of about 500 meters, NASA small drones will only play the "eye" for pure exploration. However, the idea of ​​putting drones on Mars is still a very interesting idea: after all, the terrain and high-speed flying ability will definitely help the drone collect and recreate the image. Mars is much faster than explorer cars.