Space-Copter

NASA is sending the Mars Helicopter with the Mars 2020 rover mission, launching in July 2020. The helicopter is a small, autonomous rotorcraft will demonstrate the viability and potential of heavier-than-air vehicles on Mars, which would make further research – or colonisation – on the planet, a lot more efficient.

Of course, NASA is celebrating another solar system first by sending and the first helicopter to another planet. And why shouldn’t they, with the atmosphere on Mars being 0.01 that of Earth, if the mission is successful, it will be a truly remarkable engineering feat. Besides it being incredibly difficult to hover on Mars, the success of this mission will have huge impacts on the concepts of colonising Mars and living productively on the surface.

This project started in August 2013 as a technology development project at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), the Mars Helicopter had to prove that big things could come in small packages. The result of the team’s four years of design, testing and redesign weighs in at little under 1.8 kilograms. Its fuselage is about the size of a softball, and its twin, counter-rotating blades will bite into the thin Martian atmosphere at almost 3,000 rpm – about 10 times the rate of a helicopter on Earth.

‘Its fuselage will be about the size of a softball.’

“Exploring the Red Planet with NASA’s Mars Helicopter exemplifies a successful marriage of science and technology innovation and is a unique opportunity to advance Mars exploration for the future,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, Associate Administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at the agency headquarters in Washington. “After the Wright Brothers proved 117 years ago that powered, sustained, and controlled flight was possible here on Earth, another group of American pioneers may prove the same can be done on another world.”

The helicopter also contains built-in capabilities needed for operation at Mars, including solar cells to charge its lithium-ion batteries, and a heating mechanism to keep it warm through the cold Martian nights. But before the helicopter can fly at Mars it has to get there. It will do so attached to the belly pan of the Mars 2020 rover.

“The altitude record for a helicopter flying here on Earth is about 40,000 feet. The atmosphere of Mars is only one percent that of Earth, so when our helicopter is on the Martian surface, it’s already at the Earth equivalent of 100,000 feet up,” said Mimi Aung, Mars Helicopter project manager at JPL. “To make it fly at that low atmospheric density, we had to scrutinize everything, make it as light as possible while being as strong and as powerful as it can possibly be.”

Once the rover is on the planet’s surface, a suitable location will be found to deploy the helicopter down from the vehicle and place it onto the ground. The rover then will be driven away from the helicopter to a safe distance from which it will relay commands. After its batteries are charged and a myriad of tests are performed, controllers on Earth will command the Mars Helicopter to take its first autonomous flight into history.
“We don’t have a pilot and Earth will be several light minutes away, so there is no way to joystick this mission in real time,” said Aung. “Instead, we have an autonomous capability that will be able to receive and interpret commands from the ground, and then fly the mission on its own.”

The full 30-day flight test campaign will include up to five flights of incrementally farther flight distances, up to a few hundred meters, and longer durations as long as 90 seconds, over a period. On its first flight, the helicopter will make a short vertical climb to 10 feet (3 meters), where it will hover for about 30 seconds.

As a technology demonstration, the Mars Helicopter is considered a high-risk, high-reward project. If it does not work, the Mars 2020 mission will not be impacted. If it does work, helicopters may have a real future as low-flying scouts and aerial vehicles to access locations not reachable by ground travel.

“The ability to see clearly what lies beyond the next hill is crucial for future explorers,” said Zurbuchen. “We already have great views of Mars from the surface as well as from orbit. With the added dimension of a bird’s-eye view from a ‘marscopter,’ we can only imagine what future missions will achieve.”

Mars 2020 will launch on a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, and is expected to reach Mars in February 2021.

The rover will conduct geological assessments of its landing site on Mars, determine the habitability of the environment, search for signs of ancient Martian life, and assess natural resources and hazards for future human explorers. Scientists will use the instruments aboard the rover to identify and collect samples of rock and soil, encase them in sealed tubes, and leave them on the planet’s surface for potential return to Earth on a future Mars mission.

The Mars 2020 Project at JPL in Pasadena, California, manages rover development for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, is responsible for launch management.

Where else could drones influence?

If the Mars 2020 UAV is successful, then it is likely that the technology could be adapted for other terrestrial environments, making for easier interplanetary exploration. This would of course be dependent on the planet having an atmosphere in which to hover. But given that, we could explore planets for potential life, threats and resources far quicker than we have ever before.

The next candidate for a UAV is Titan, Saturn’s largest moon. Titan is a special moon. It is one of the few other terrestrial bodies in our Solar System to have an atmosphere, and known to have the basic building blocks for life as we know it: water.The Dragonfly project fell out of a blue sky projects competition run by NASA, called Final Frontiers. The team who submitted the proposal for the Dragonfly mission were one of only two winners, who were then granted USD$4 Million to flesh out the idea further over another year.

The premise of the project is to follow up on the findings from the Cassini mission and the many observations Cassini made on Titan during it’s 13 years of orbiting Saturn. The UAV would be powered by plutonium and has the potential to travel tens or hundreds of kilometers through Titan’s atmosphere. If NASA takes on the project after the team have completed their plans, then the ultimate goal of Dragonfly would be to measure the prebiotic chemistry of on the moon.

“This is a giant leap forward in developing our next bold mission of science discovery,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “These are tantalizing investigations that seek to answer some of the biggest questions in our solar system today.”

‘These are tantalising investigations that seek to answer some of the biggest questions in our solar system today.’
Thomas Zurbuchen

Looking forward, way into the future, it is possible to envision a time where we send UAVs to inspect planets in other solar systems that are placed within a reasonable distance from their local star that it is possible they could harbour liquid water – the Goldilocks Zone. We could easily cover large portions of the planet quickly, and evaluate whether it harbours life, before zipping off to the next potential planet.

Blue Sky Projects to Inspire our Youths

These visionary missions have a profound impact in inspiring young people to follow a career in science or engineering. These days in the education field, encouraging students into the fields we call S-T-E-M, or Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths, is a huge effort and very current conversation. The conversation is often centered around what skills students need to enter those careers, and what skills are in demand in industry. The shortage of STEM qualified people is very real in Australia, America and most countries with a growing tech industry. Those jobs are experiencing higher than average growth, and our educational institutions can’t keep up with the supply. To through some numbers around, in America, they will need 1 Million more university STEM qualified graduates than they are predicted to produce by 2022.

A piece of the conversation that is often missed, is the why. Why would students want to get into those fields? What is motivating them to get through the hard slog and enter the “STEM” workforce? Just like the space race of the 60s fuelled a generation of young Americans to study STEM and join NASA, inspiring projects like this could have a lasting impact on the careers and ambitions of students.

U.S. Rep. John Culberson of Texas echoed Bridenstine’s appreciation of the impact of American firsts on the future of exploration and discovery. “This exciting and visionary achievement will inspire young people all over the United States to become scientists and engineers, paving the way for even greater discoveries in the future.”