NASA and AeroVironment advance SkyFall Mars helicopter development
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NASA and AeroVironment are advancing development of three Mars helicopters for the SkyFall mission, scheduled to launch in late 2028 on the Space Reactor 1 Freedom nuclear propulsion demonstration. AeroVironment announced on Aug. 27 a contract from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory for co-design and co-manufacture of the helicopters. The helicopters will carry ground-penetrating radar to survey for subsurface ice, with a flexible fabric-based antenna probing 12 to 60 centimeters below the surface.
Key Facts
- AeroVironment received a contract from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on Aug. 27 for co-design and co-manufacture of three Mars helicopters for the SkyFall mission.
- SkyFall is a payload on NASA's Space Reactor 1 Freedom mission, scheduled to launch in late 2028 to test nuclear electric propulsion.
- The SkyFall helicopters will carry ground-penetrating radar with a flexible, fabric-based antenna that probes between 12 and 60 centimeters below the Martian surface.
- Each SkyFall helicopter weighs about 2.5 kilograms, compared with 1.8 kilograms for the Ingenuity helicopter flown to Mars in 2021.
- The three helicopters will be released in midair from an entry vehicle based on the Mars Exploration Rovers design, a maneuver called SkyFall.
Contract and Mission
AeroVironment announced on Aug. 27 that it received a contract from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory for co-design and co-manufacture of three Mars helicopters for NASA's SkyFall mission. The company did not disclose the value of the contract. NASA announced SkyFall at its Ignition event in March as a payload on the Space Reactor 1 Freedom mission, scheduled to launch in late 2028 to test nuclear electric propulsion. SkyFall was described as a trio of helicopters based on the Ingenuity helicopter flown to Mars on the Perseverance rover in 2021.
Helicopter Design and Payload
The SkyFall helicopters will be slightly larger versions of Ingenuity, with larger rotors to carry a larger payload such as the ground-penetrating radar. Will Pomerantz, head of space ventures at AeroVironment, said the helicopters will look almost identical to Ingenuity without a scale bar. The ground-penetrating radar, described by JPL in a release earlier this month, will use a flexible, fabric-based antenna with metallic elements to probe between 12 and 60 centimeters below the surface. Timothy Canham, a principal software engineer at JPL, said in a talk at the Small Satellite Conference on Aug. 24 that the helicopters may also carry high-resolution imagers, a dosimeter, and temperature sensors. Joey Beckman, program manager for the SkyFall helicopters at AeroVironment, said each helicopter weighs about 2.5 kilograms, compared with about 1.8 kilograms for Ingenuity; a slide in Canham's presentation listed the total mass as 2.7 kilograms.
Delivery and Deployment
Ingenuity flew to Mars on the underside of the Perseverance rover and was released onto the surface after landing, giving engineers time to test its systems before the first flight. The three SkyFall helicopters will be carried inside an entry vehicle based on the design used for the Mars Exploration Rovers. Rather than landing the helicopters directly on the surface, they will be released in midair, a maneuver Pomerantz called the SkyFall maneuver. Each helicopter will have a communications system enabling direct communication with relay spacecraft in Mars orbit, unlike Ingenuity which relied on Perseverance for communications.
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NASA and AeroVironment advance SkyFall Mars helicopter development
