AeroVironment, Inc. has been selected by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to co-design and co-develop Mars Sample Recovery Helicopter flight systems. The contract is worth $10 million and includes conceptual designs and engineering development units. The helicopters will be an upgraded version of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter design and will feature robotics to supplement aerial mobility. AeroVironment engineers previously worked with NASA JPL to develop the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, which has completed 52 successful flights and outperformed its design objectives. The Sample Recovery Helicopters will be a secondary method of sample retrieval for the NASA/ESA Mars Sample Return Campaign. They will pick up cached sample tubes left on the surface by Perseverance and transport them to the Sample Retrieval Lander. Once the sample cache is launched off the red planet, another spacecraft would capture it in Mars orbit, and then bring it back to Earth safely and securely in the early to mid-2030s. Scientists believe the samples could shed light on whether life has ever existed on Mars.
