The NASA Mars helicopter completes flight tests

WASHINGTON: NASA's Mars helicopter, designed to fly in thin atmospheres, has passed flight tests and is ready for its journey to the red planet which is due to take off in 2020, the space agency said US.

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 the tests performed by the flight model were to demonstrate its operation on Mars, including its operation at temperatures similar to those of Mars, NASA said 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, announced Nasa.

"We are preparing our first flight on Mars, we have already recorded more than 75 minutes of flight with a technical model, which was a close approximation of our helicopter," said MiMi Aung, project leader for the Mars helicopter NASA's reaction propulsion laboratory at NASA USA.

"But this recent flight model test was the real deal – it was our helicopter bound for Mars – we needed to see that it was working as intended," Aung said.

Although flying on helicopters is commonplace 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 only accounts for about 1% of the Earth's density," Aung said.

"Our test flights could have a similar atmospheric density here on Earth – if you climb your airfield at 30,480 meters, so you can not go somewhere and find that, you have to do it," he said. she declared.

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, Mars helicopter test leader 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 came up 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 the Earth's gravity.

The first flight of the Mars helicopter was followed by a second in the empty 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.