NASA had sent an R/C helicopter to planet Mars. Today we were happy to witness that they succeeded to take off the heli from the ground up to a planned 3m height.

NASA had built this custom made heli to operate in that uncharted environment of Mars. According to the Wikipedia the atmosphere of Mars is much thinner than Earth’s. The average surface pressure is only about 610 pascals (0.088 psi) which is less than 1% of the Earth’s value.

According to Thomas Zurbuchen of NASA having the helicopter (latterly helicopters) to Mars offers the ability to explore the areas like caves which would have been impossible for the rover to access.

The rotor head speed gets up to 2500 rpm and the custom made blades giving the maximum thrust are made of Carbon Fiber. This heli is operating with really powerful and low energy consumpting microprocessor, Qualcomm Snapdragon 801. This electric helicopter’s batteries are charged-up with solar panel. The total weight is only 1.8 kilograms.

More information:
NASA: https://mars.nasa.gov/technology/helicopter
Qualcomm Processor: https://www.qualcomm.com/products/snapdragon-processors-801