Ingenuity has now flown 29 times.īut Ingenuity’s flights-a tough technological challenge in the airy air of Mars-were so successful that NASA decided to let the copter continue to follow Perseverance, acting as an aerial scout of the terrain ahead. The copter was originally scheduled to fly a few times during a month-long technology demonstration shortly after the mission lands on Mars in February 2021, and then Perseverance will leave Ingenuity behind and resume its primary science mission. NASA officials have been surprised by the continued achievements of Ingenuity, which will be carried to Mars on the underside of Perseverance. The trip back to Earth would take a few more years, landing in a small capsule in 2033.

The helicopters would then fly the samples back to the lander. The sample return lander was located near where Perseverance had dropped the rock samples to Earth, sealed in tubes about the size of cigars. Helicopters would be a backup if anything went wrong with the Perseverance. With Curiosity, a rover nearly identical in design to Perseverance, continuing to operate on Mars a decade after its arrival, NASA leaders are confident that Perseverance will still be operational when the Mars Sample Return lander arrives in 2030. Instead, the plan is for Perseverance to travel to a lander, where 30 rock samples would be loaded onto a return rocket. The mission redesign eliminates the retrieving rover. Earlier this year, NASA announced plans to use two landers - one for the rover and one for the return rocket. But the rover’s design got bigger and bigger, and it, along with its rocket, became too heavy to fit on a single lander.

Another spacecraft would grab a container of rocks and take them to Earth. The original plan was to send an ESA-built rover to pick up the samples and return them to the lander, where they would be loaded onto a rocket and sent into Mars orbit.

Rocket copter