3 ms·

What's the utility of doing this besides being cool? It is very cool, but given the weight restrictions, I'm not sure there's any clear use case for this tech b

• wolfram74 6y ago
  This particular mission is a technology proving mission, future missions will use it for forward scouting type stuff, use the copter to find best courses forward, heavier ground probe with all the experiments can take a path with the advantage of foresight. At least that's my understanding.
• jvanderbot 6y ago
  Rovers are unfortunately very slow, meaning they cannot cover much area, and cannot measure from very many areas simultaneously. Helicopters fill that gap. I think this paper might cover some of the motivation: https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/abs/10.2514/6.2018-0023 https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/abs/10.2514/6.2018-0023
• ceejayoz 6y ago
  "There's something neat we'd like to look at, but we can't get the rover up there" seems like a likely answer.
• _Microft 6y ago
  It's a technology demonstration. https://mars.nasa.gov/technology/helicopter/ https://mars.nasa.gov/technology/helicopter/
• TinkersW 6y ago
  There is a future mission planned to Titan called Dragonfly, it will send a rotorcraft to the surface. Perhaps they can use the data from this mars copter to improve the odds of success with Dragonfly.