NASA Mars helicopter completes flight tests

NASA's Mars helicopter, designed to fly in thin atmospheres, has successfully completed flight tests and is ready for its journey to the red planet, which is expected to take off in 2020, the US Space Agency said.

Weighing no more than 1.8 kg, the helicopter is a technology demonstration project that is currently undergoing a rigorous verification process that certifies it for Mars. The majority of tests conducted by the flight model are to demonstrate its operation on Mars, including its operation at temperatures similar to those of Mars, said NASA in a statement.

The helicopter must operate in extremely cold temperatures, including at night, with temperatures as high as minus 90 degrees Celsius. The helicopter has to reach the surface of the red planet in February 2021, by the time it is firmly nestled under the belly of the March 2020 rover.

A few months later, it will be deployed and test flights will begin, the first from the surface of another world, NASA announced. "We are preparing our first flight to Mars with more than 75 minutes of flight with a technical model close to our helicopter," said MiMi Aung, project manager for Mars helicopter at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to the states United. "But this recent test of the flight model was the real deal. This is our helicopter to Mars. We needed to see that it worked as advertised, "Aung said.

While flying on helicopters is common here on Earth, flying in hundreds of millions of kilometers in the thin Martian atmosphere is something else. Creating the right conditions for testing here on Earth presents its own challenges. "The Martian atmosphere is only about 1% of the density of the Earth," Aung said. "Our test flights could have a similar atmospheric density here on Earth – if you climb your aerodrome at 30,480 meters altitude. So you can not go somewhere and find that. You have to do it, she said.

The team created a vacuum that sucks all nitrogen, oxygen and other gases from the air in the mammoth cylinder. In their place, the team injected carbon dioxide, the main ingredient of the Mars atmosphere. "Putting our helicopter in an extremely thin atmosphere is only part of the challenge," said Teddy Tzanetos, test leader of the Mars helicopter at JPL. "To truly simulate a flight on Mars, we need to eliminate two-thirds of Earth's gravity, because the severity of Mars is much lower," said Tzanetos.

The team did this with a gravity unloading system – a motorized lanyard attached to the top of the helicopter to provide an uninterrupted tug equivalent to two-thirds of Earth's gravity. The first flight of the Mars helicopter was followed by a second in the vacuum chamber the next day. By recording a total of one minute flight time at an altitude of five centimeters, more than 1,500 individual pieces of carbon fiber, aerodynamic grade aluminum, silicon, copper, foils and foams have proven that they could work together as a coherent unit. "The next time we fly, we fly on Mars," said Aung.

The Mars helicopter will launch a technology demonstrator with the March 2020 rover on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket in July 2020 from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Base in Florida. He is expected to reach Mars in February 2021.