NEW YORK: The Jet Propulsion Laboratory is seeking $30 million from NASA to build a Mars drone expected to survive at least one month in a harsh environment.
For the past year and a half, JPL scientists have been studying the Mars Helicopter, a low-flying scout that could triple the distance Mars rovers travel in a single Red Planet day, study scientist Matthew Golombek said.
“It’s too cheap not to put it on (a rover), or so we hope,” Golombek said, adding that the Mars 2020 rover is budgeted at $1.5 billion and the Curiosity rover mission is working with $2.5 billion in funding.
The 2.2-pound prototype looks like a medium-size, cube tissue box. With a 3.6-foot blade span, the Mars Helicopter would provide a much-appreciated aerial view to complement the limited field of vision currently available from cameras aboard rovers.
Although orbiters provide supplemental data for scientists and engineers who plan a rover’s path, the highest resolution is about 25 centimeters per pixel. Scientists could identify objects that are about 3 feet across. But to distinguish key outcrops and to help plan a pathway, NASA needs something that could provide photos with 10 times that resolution, Golombek said.
Enter the drone, which would be able to take photos at a resolution of 3 centimeters per pixel.
“High enough to see all key rocks and paths,” Golombek said. “Because the helicopter is so flexible, the resolution is just how high we fly. We can even land and take close-up images of rocks.”
The proposed add-on is expected to fly and take pictures for about three minutes a day. It could travel about 1,970 feet in one flight and would typically hover about 130 feet above the surface of Mars, Golombek said.
