PASADENA, Calif. – NASA is planning to send a tiny autonomous helicopter to Mars on its next rover mission to the red planet.
The space agency announced Friday that the helicopter will be carried aboard the Mars 2020 rover as a technology demonstration to test its ability to serve as a scout and to reach locations not accessible by ground.
Get breaking National news
The helicopter is being developed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
READ MORE: NASA launches InSight spacecraft to Mars to measure temperature and ‘marsquakes’
The craft weighs less than 4 pounds (1.8 kilograms), has a fuselage about the size of a softball and twin, counter-rotating blades that will spin at almost 3,000 rpm – a necessity in the thin martian atmosphere. Solar cells will charge its lithium-ion batteries.
Flights will be programmed because the distance to Mars precludes real-time commands from Earth.
- What is CrowdStrike? How a cybersecurity update caused a global tech outage
- CrowdStrike outage: Canadian flights, health care disrupted after faulty update
- Wildfire near Spences Bridge sparks ‘tactical evacuations,’ new fires flare in Kootenays
- Group in charge of Google’s $100M for news outlets lays out its governance model
Comments