The newly developed and recently unveiled prototype miniature helicopter
drone, a possible means to support China's Mars missions, is designed to
become a navigator for the Mars rover. It will greatly boost the latter's
ability to explore valuable targets on the surface of the Red Planet, the
project leader said on Monday.
Carrying a small-sized multispectral detection and imaging system, the "Mars
surface cruise drone system" is capable of forming animage of a large area
within a radius of a few hundred meters in a single flight, which enables
the rover to rapidly grasp the surrounding terrain for a safer and faster
drive via precision guiding, Bian Chunjiang, a researcher with the National
Space Science Center (NSSC) under the Chinese Academy of Science and chief
scientist of the project, told the Global Times in an interview on Monday.
Also, the system's quick imaging and analysis of the landscape and surface
composition features would help the rover to fast locate and drive toward
targets with high precision, enhancing the mission's efficiency, Bian note.
According to the NSSC, researchers are mulling to adopt solar energy or a
wireless electricity-charging method to supply power for the Mars drone
system, or a mixture of both.
The concept of flying a craft on Mars has recently been verified by NASA.
The Perseverance rover landed on Mars in February, carrying with it the
1.8-kilogram Ingenuity Mars Helicopter.
The vehicle made the first powered flight by an aircraft on another planet
in April and conducted its 13th and most recent flight on Sunday.
Bian noted that two blades with a common axis are the best technological
path to date, surpassing other methods to support a vertical take-off and
vertical landing capability on Mars's surface.
Currently, NSSC researchers are still working toward breakthroughs in key
technological barriers for the Mars surface cruise system, and verifying its
feasibility to lay grounds for future Mars surface surveillance missions.
The technology has been proven practical through the prototype development
and environmental simulation tests, Bian said.
The follow-up will focus on the long-term survival in a complex environment
like the surface of Mars, and carry out related technical research and
verification work, according to Bian.
It is very challenging to take off from and land on the surface of Mars,
where the atmosphere is very thin. The atmospheric pressure is only 0.7 to
0.8 percent of that on the Earth's surface, or equivalent to the pressure at
an altitude of 30,000 to 40,000 meters above the Earth's surface. The drone
will also have to operate in extremely low temperatures and deal with the
difficulty of autonomous charging on Mars, Bian said.
On September 1, the NSSC unveiled the Mars drone system, which passed tests
by the Beijing Science and Technology Committee earlier in August.
The news came following the remarkable victory by the country's first
interplanetary mission Tianwen-1 that pulled off orbiting, landing and
roving the Red Planet all in one go, a first in human history.
Zhang Kejian, administrator of the China National Space Administration
(CNSA), told the media on Friday that such feats position China as one of
the leading players in the field of interplanetary exploration.
China plans to launch a Mars sample-return mission and a Jovian system
exploration mission sometime about 2030, a CNSA official said in June, the
Xinhua News Agency reported.
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