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NASA is planning to send an autonomous rotorcraft to explore Mars (writes Nick Flaherty). The Mars Helicopter will be part of NASA’s Mars 2020 rover mission currently scheduled to launch in July that year. The four-year technology development project, at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), has refined the spherical 28 cm diameter design with solar cells to slowly charge its lithium- ion batteries, and a heating mechanism to keep it warm. Total weight is only 1.8 kg. The batteries power two counter-rotating blades running at 3000 rpm – about ten times the rate of a helicopter on Earth, although gravity on Mars is only 38% that of Earth’s. “The altitude record for a helicopter flying here on Earth is about 40,000 ft. The atmosphere of Mars is only 1% that of Earth though, so when our helicopter is on the Martian surface it’s already at the Earth equivalent of 100,000 ft,” said Mimi Aung, Mars Helicopter project manager at JPL. “To make it fly at that low atmospheric density, we had to make it as light as possible while being as strong and as powerful as possible.” The ’Marscopter’ will be lifted from the rover onto the planet’s surface. The rover then will be driven away from it to a safe distance, from which it will relay commands. After its batteries are charged, controllers on Earth will trigger the flight. “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.” Over 30 days the ’copter will fly five times, with a range of a few hundred metres for 90 s and at a height of 3 m, hovering for 30 s. The rover and helicopter are expected to reach Mars in February 2021. Mars survey by ’copter Space vehicles Artist’s impression of the Marscopter, which will fly autonomously on the Red Planet