AV Reveals Skyfall – a potential future mission concept for next-generation Mars Helicopters developed with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) to help pave the way for human landing on Mars through autonomous aerial exploration.
source.image: AV
Skyfall is designed to deploy six scout helicopters on Mars, where they would explore many of the sites selected by NASA and industry as top candidate landing sites for first Martian astronauts.
While exploring the region, each helicopter can operate independently, beaming high-resolution surface imaging and sub-surface radar data back to Earth for analysis, helping ensure crewed vehicles make safe landings at areas with maximum amounts of water, ice, and other resources.
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The data Skyfall collects could also advance the nation’s quest to discover whether Mars was ever habitable. Skyfall builds upon AV’s expertise in multi-domain autonomous systems and proven capabilities as part of the Ingenuity program, including its lightweight aircraft structure suitable for the thin atmosphere of Mars. As part of the public-private partnership, JPL plans to transfer some components of its Ingenuity work to AV for the new mission, commercializing many of the proven avionics, flight software, and modeling techniques that have worked on Mars.
