WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - NASA is planning to send a small, autonomous rotorcraft or helicopter to Mars.
The Mars Helicopter will travel with the Mars 2020 rover mission, currently scheduled to launch in July 2020, the agency said in a statement.
By flying the helicopter on Mars skies, NASA aims to demonstrate the viability and potential of heavier-than-air vehicles on the Red Planet.
'NASA has a proud history of firsts,' said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said.
'The idea of a helicopter flying the skies of another planet is thrilling. The Mars Helicopter holds much promise for our future science, discovery, and exploration missions to Mars.'
The Mars Helicopter was started in August 2013 as a technology development project at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
The craft weighs in at little under four pounds (1.8 kilograms) and its fuselage is about the size of a softball. Its twin, counter-rotating blades will bite into the thin Martian atmosphere at almost 3,000 rpm - about 10 times the rate of a helicopter on Earth.
The full 30-day flight test campaign will include up to five flights of incrementally farther flight distances, up to a few hundred meters, and longer durations as long as 90 seconds, over a period, NASA said. The helicopter will make a short vertical climb to 10 feet (3 meters), where it will hover for about 30 seconds, on its first flight.
Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX