NASA announced on Friday, the rover will be carrying something a bit more familiar that also happens to be a major feat of engineering: a helicopter. The craft is called the Mars Helicopter, but it’s really more like a drone. It’s also not guaranteed to work. The goal is to test the viability of drone exploration of an alien world rather than conduct a scientific assessment of the planet. At first, the helicopter will make very, very short flights, hovering just 10 feet in the air. But even one short flight will be an impressive engineering achievement, and the first time a helicopter has taken off on a world that is not our own. Already, prototypes of the Mars Helicopter have been tested in a facility that mimics the atmospheric conditions on Mars. Mars’s atmosphere is less than 1 percent as dense as Earth’s. Flying on the surface of Mars is equivalent to flying 100,000 feet above sea level, NASA reported. To compensate for the thin air, the helicopter’s wings will spin at 10 times the rate of a typical earthbound copter to achieve lift.
Mars 2020 is slated to launch in July of that year on United Launch Alliance's Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, and the mission should arrive at Mars in February 2021. The six-wheeled rover will hunt for signs of habitable environments as well as sites that may have once hosted microbial life, examining the Red Planet with 23 cameras, a microphone and a drill to collect samples. The helicopter will ride to Mars attached to the rover's belly pan, officials said. Once the rover reaches the planet's surface, it will place the helicopter on the ground and move to a safe distance to relay commands; controllers on Earth will direct it to take its first autonomous flight.
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https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/5/14/17351802/nasa-mars-helicopter-atmosphere
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