The NASA helicopter, which is destined to fly to Mars, has completed another round of important tests and is expected to be integrated with the rover in the trip to Mars, which will take place in the summer of 2020.
Building a heavier-than-air craft to fly to the planet Mars is quite a difficult undertaking because the air on Mars is much thinner than on planet Earth and the thermowinees are too low.
Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is conducting various tests throughout 2019 on a specially built helicopter, with the aim of integrating with the rover that will go to Mars. They have built "a simulated Martian environment" and are testing the helicopter in temperatures as low as minus 90 degrees Celsius, as well as in conditions that simulate both the density and quality of Martian air (mainly CO2). In the video below you will also see it connected with a cord that helps to simulation of gravitys of Mars.
Some of the tests were to ensure that the helicopter could survive the conditions it would face during a real rocket launch that would carry it.
The helicopter passed the flight test and now "wears" the new solar panels of. NASA says it is not putting any scientific instruments on the helicopter, other than a camera, of course, but its purpose is to demonstrate that it is possible to fly a guided drone from Earth. Somewhere around here, those of you who own a drone must be feeling a little weird about the word “range”.
The 2020 mission to Mars is scheduled to begin in July 2020 and arrive on Mars on February 18, 2021. You can not go together, but you can submit your name to Nasa to carve it into one chip of silicon to be placed on the rover.
The main destination for the mission is the Jezero crater, where NASA hopes the rover will find signs of ancient life.