Sometime soon, we will all get to witness the first Mars flight by an aircraft. That may even happen later this week. What’s going to happen? The Ingenuity mini-helicopter, sent to the Red Planet aboard the Mars Perseverance rover, is getting ready to fly. It’ll be the first aircraft ever to do so.

It has already taken its first picture of the ground (below), as a prelude to the imaging it will do in flight. Early flights will be short hops. Eventually, mission scientists hope to use it to do some ‘scouting ahead’ on the terrain. That will allow the rover to pursue long-term trips across the surface. The ultimate goal of the mission includes the search for clues to past (and maybe present) life and the existence of water on the Red Planet.

Mars Flight is No Longer a Dream

Aircraft on Mars are not a new idea. In fact, people have been talking about having planes on the Red Planet since the beginning of the last century. Most of the early ideas seem like science fiction. The technology to achieve them really didn’t exist until mid-century. And, in fact, it took until the Perseverance rover for planners to include a little helicopter as part of the “baggage.”

But, the ideas were there. Back in the 1980s, during a series of workshops called “The Case for Mars” meetings, scientists had high hopes for Mars aircraft. I remember hearing a talk about Mars aircraft that mentioned some concepts that Werner von Braun put forth. He felt that Mars explorers would need aircraft, which makes perfect sense. But, first, we had to get to Mars, which (for von Braun) was in the very distant future).

Plans for Mars Flight

For long-duration missions, particularly with human presence, being able to fly over the surface for reconnaissance and exploration is important, as von Braun’s idea suggested. However, at the time he was first suggesting such flights, people didn’t have a good sense of the Martian atmosphere. Before the Mariner IV mission, people had assumed that Mars and Earth had similar conditions. By the mid-20th Century, that view changed as spacecraft data came in showing that the Mars atmosphere was mostly carbon dioxide with a little nitrogen and argon. The Martian atmosphere is also incredibly thin. You’d have to travel about 20 miles above Earth’s surface to get to a “typical” Mars-type atmospheric density. That incredibly thin atmosphere would make a big difference to an aircraft built to fly in the regions of Earth’s thicker atmosphere where aircraft typically go.

Fixed-wing Mars Flight Ideas

To fly on Mars, then, requires an aircraft that can take advantage of what little atmosphere there is on the planet. At the Case for Mars meetings, we talked about those aircraft, and even sketched out some glider-type designs that could utilize the atmosphere. NASA has also looked at concepts for Mars planes. One of the first that I remember seeing plans for was the ARES (Aerial Regional-scale Environmenntal Survey) plane. It was proposed and prototyped at NASA Langley, and was supposed to be a rocket-powered lifting body that would carry instruments to study the atmosphere, surface, sub-surface, and magnetic field conditions on Mars.

Unfortunately, ARES wasn’t chosen as a mission, but its concepts were sound. Over the years, a number of fixed-wing aircraft ideas have been floated for Mars exploration. I particularly liked the Daedalus concept (which also didn’t get too far beyond the planning stage). It was a glider that had a range of several hundred kilometers on Mars. Its prime mission target would have been Coprates Chasma canyon region.

Rotors on Mars

Fixed-wing craft (whether powered or gliders) are still on the drawing boards for Mars exploration. At the moment, many challenges remain: first you have to get the aircraft to Mars. Next, you have to figure out how to get the propellant there with it, and send along enough to achieve all the scientific objectives. Then, there are the issues of command and control, although with modern artificial-intelligence-driven drones and aircraft here on Earth, that’s maybe not so much of an issue any more. But, the exploration challenges remain: once you get your aircraft on Mars, operating it for long periods of time and getting the science are all dependent on having a good idea of the flight conditions. Sure, we know the atmospheric density, chemical composition, wind speeds, etc. But, we haven’t flown anything there yet that can take off and land repeatedly.

Ingenuity on Mars

So, what kind of aircraft can do that in these early days? This is where Ingenuity comes in. It was engineered to handle the atmospheric density, and can fly over quite a bit of terrain multiple times. That’s a big step forward in exploration.

The Ingenuity “chopper” gets its “juice” from batteries that are recharged by a solar panel. It is capable of repeated 90-second-long flights away from its liftoff site and then back again. Its maximum altitude will be about five meters and it can travel about 50 meters at a time and then come back. It will send all of its data back through Perseverance. It’s a great technology demonstrator that will allow mission planners to learn more about the mechanics of flight in Mars conditions.

A New Era of Mars Flight

Eventually, there will be piloted aircraft on Mars, but having pilots requires having human crews on the surface. And, we’re not there yet. It could be another decade (or maybe less) before people set foot on the Red Planet. Until they do, it’s not a bad idea to “practice, practice, practice” using robotic and AI-guided aircraft. And, that’s why we have Ingenuity getting ready for her maiden flight.