The little Ingenuity drone proved that helicopters can play a revolutionary role in Mars exploration. Now, NASA is thinking ahead to bigger and better things.
On the back of the success of Ingenuity, which opened up the skies of the Red Planet with 72 flights, the agency is developing a larger drone — the SUV-sized Mars Chopper, which would use six rotors, each with six blades, to propel it through the thin Martian atmosphere. And scientists are already cooking up proposals to make the most of the cutting edge craft.
An intriguing new proposal is Nighthawk, detailed in a pair of papers presented at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference at the Woodlands, Texas, which was held from March 10 to March 14.
Nighthawk would task Mars Chopper — which does not require support from a rover, as was the case with Ingenuity and the Perseverance rover — with swooping through the deep, interconnected canyons and across dune fields and lava flows of Eastern Noctis Labyrinthus, a fascinating and scientifically rich region located at the transition between the canyon system of Valles Marineris and the vast volcanic plateau of Tharsis.
Related: How NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter opened the Mars skies to exploration
Among key aims of Nighthawk are studying key areas of Eastern Noctis Labyrinthus — thought to be a deeply eroded and glaciated giant volcano — for potential biomarkers and even suitability for future human exploration.
Notably, within this region is Noctis Landing, considered a candidate site for a future crewed touchdown. The mission would also characterize water features and their evolution and volcanic features and their histories, and explore the area’s now deeply eroded giant volcano, Noctis Volcano, and its expected massive amounts of glacier ice.
To achieve this, Nighthawk would be equipped with three science payloads, using just 6.6 pounds (3.0 kilograms) of the available 11 lbs (5 kg) of payload mass on Mars Chopper. This would allow it to fly significantly higher and reach a ceiling of 4,920 feet (1,500 meters) above the global average Mars altitude and thus carry out its science goals. By contrast, Ingenuity was flying within Jezero Crater, at around 1.6 miles (2.6 kilometers) below the global average, where the atmosphere is thicker.
The payloads are OCCAM (Omni-directional Color CAMera system), an eight-camera color imager for navigation and geological context, the NIRAC spectrometer and context camera, and PMWS (Puli Mars Water Snooper), a neutron detector for assessing water abundance in the near subsurface.
Nighthawk would operate for at least 240 sols (Mars days) on the Red Planet, conducting 100 flights of up to 1.86 miles (3.0 km) each.
“Nighthawk’s science mission would not be achievable with an Ingenuity-class helicopter, but could be accomplished with the larger, more capable NASA Mars Chopper currently under design,” the paper, led by Pascal Lee of NASA’s Ames Research Center in California, concluded. “The Mars Chopper’s expected flight range, flight altitude AGL (above ground level), and payload capacity would allow Nighthawk to accomplish its vast range of science.”
There is currently no indication of when proposals for using Mars Chopper will enter a selection phase, but the possibilities, as suggested by Nighthawk, are tantalizing.
