AeroVironment and NASA’s JPL have shown off a wild concept for deploying six helicopters above the surface of Mars.
Defense tech company AeroVironment and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory have shown off a wild concept for deploying six helicopters above the surface of Mars to scout for water and possible human landing sites.
The concept, dubbed „Skyfall“, builds on NASA’s extremely successful and revolutionary Ingenuity Mars helicopter, which became the first manmade object to achieve powered flight on another planet in 2021. It flew a whopping 72 times over three years, vastly exceeding expectations.
AeroVironment’s plan is to „deploy six scout helicopters on Mars, where they would explore many of the sites selected by NASA and industry as top candidate landing sites for America’s first Martian astronauts“, according to a press release.
As seen in a flashy animation, the „Skyfall Maneuver“ will attempt to deploy the six rotorcraft from a much larger spacecraft during its descent through the Martian atmosphere, making it a highly ambitious endeavor. However, the plan would also „eliminate the necessity for a landing platform — traditionally one of the most expensive, complex and risky elements of any Mars mission“, per the company.
