The Martian helicopter Ingenuity is being a success in its mission to the Red Planet. And for this reason, NASA is now betting on sending two more rotary-wing vehicles to Mars.
According to the agency, the new helicopters should help the Martian rover Perseverance, which will be responsible for collecting samples of the soil of Mars, which will be transported to our planet by another spacecraft. The mission is scheduled for 2031, and will be carried out in partnership with the European Space Agency (ESA).
Initially, NASA says that the helicopters will be a backup option for the Martian rover, which will collect samples, but it also proves that the agency plans to use more aerial vehicles on Mars, after the success of the Ingenuity flights.
This was the first aircraft to fly on Mars and has a fully electric propulsion, powered by a few batteries and a small solar . Ingenuity is 49 cm tall and has a total weight of 1,8 kg.
The helicopters will look like Ingenuity in of size and mass, but with two key differences, said NASA MSR Program Manager Richard Cook.
“There will be landing legs that include, at the bottom of them, mobility wheels”, explained Cook, saying that this new capability will allow helicopters to "cross the surface". A mini-robotic arm on each of the ships will allow drones to pick up the sample tubes that Perseverance will leave behind if needed.
The helicopters must then approach the rover, and another robotic arm will collect the samples. One of the highlights is that the two new helicopters will be up to five times faster compared to Ingenuity.
The new mission should have a total cost of US$ 7 billion, including a return ship to Earth with the samples and the two helicopters. The goal is to collect soil samples in the Jezero crater, which was once the delta of an ancient river, when Mars still had liquid water on its surface. Due to its characteristics, this soil may contain traces of ancient bacteria that inhabited the red planet.
ESA and NASA plan to start the ambitious mission with a launch in 2030 or 2031, and return samples to our planet by 2033.
