Helicopters have hovered over and landed on the 29,029-foot summit of Mount Everest, but hovering anywhere on Mars is a whole new ballgame. The Martian atmosphere is less than one percent of the atmospheric volume on Earth—the equivalent of flying at an altitude of about 100,000 feet above Earth.
This week at Heli-Expo 2020, visitors will see a non-working model of the twin-rotor, solar-powered Mars Helicopter. The actual Mars Helicopter has already been attached to the bell of the Mars 2020 rover in preparation for the scheduled launch in July as a part of NASA's Mars 2020 rover mission.
On Wednesday at the show, a special presentation, "Taking Flight with the Mars Helicopter," will be held from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m in Room 204B at the Anaheim Convention Center. Representatives of NASA and its Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) are bringing the replica and will discuss the 2020 Mars Mission, which includes research into the potential for finding life on Mars. Speakers will also discuss the challenges of designing, developing, and testing a helicopter on Mars.
To create enough lift to sustain flight in such a thin atmosphere, the engineers designed a rotor system than spins at more than 3,000 rpm (Earthbound helicopter main rotors operate at about 400 to 500 rpm). The Mars Helicopter will fly autonomously because the time lag for radio signals between Earth and Mars makes direct control impractical. Radio signals from Earth to Mars (and Mars to Earth) can vary from about 25 seconds to about three minutes.