Mars Helicopter Scheduled for July Launch to Mars Written 31 March 2020
Artist’s concept of the Mars Helicopter, a small, autonomous rotorcraft, slated to launch on NASA's Mars 2020 rover mission in July 2020. | NASA/JPL-Caltech
SPACE reports that the next NASA mission to Mars “will carry what is meant to become the first aircraft to fly on another planet, and that experimental helicopter just spun its blades on Earth for the last time.” The Mars Helicopter “is scheduled to launch in July with the new Mars rover, now dubbed Perseverance, as an add-on project to the primary Mars 2020 mission. NASA is still striving to meet that launch date despite continuing closures enacted to slow the spread of the serious respiratory disease COVID-19 caused by a new coronavirus.” The “recent tests on the helicopter included spinning its blades for the last time before launch, during which it reached 50 rotations per minute in the testing airlock, according to [a NASA] statement.”
Full Story (SPACE)