Future of Mars Rotorcraft - Mars Science Helicopter

With Ingenuity's successful technology demonstration flights, NASA has unlocked a new dimension of mobility, exploration, and science for Mars. Just as Sojourner lead to Perseverance, so shall Ingenuity lead to larger more capable exploration platforms. This paper will present the latest future Mars rotorcraft concept in its early formulation stages, called Mars Science Helicopter (MSH). The focus of MSH is to deliver scientific payloads in the 2-5kg range to the newly unlocked frontiers of Mars. Such a rotorcraft would need to be significantly scaled up from the current Ingenuity design, growing in size and configuration to a hex-multicopter ∼3m in diameter and weighing ∼30kg. To make this leap in capability, the vehicle aerodynamic control models, downlinked data, and lessons learned from Ingenuity are critical. MSH will build on Ingenuity's success, and serve as an exploration platform capable of
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Copyright 2021 California Institute of Technology. Government sponsorship acknowledged. starting a new paradigm shift in how science is performed on Mars. The vehicle design, capabilities, mission profiles, and various engineering challenges will be analyzed in this paper. The aerodynamic controls problems associated with scaling up to a larger rotorcraft will be discussed, as well as, the systems design challenges in building a lightweight airborne science platform, the energy challenges of a standalone rotorcraft mission, and the exciting new science which is enabled by MSH.