AeroVironment Team Collaborates with NASA/JPL for Mars Helicopter Launch in July

July 27, 2020

It wasn't enough for AeroVironment engineers to design drones for use on Earth - they had their sights set on something even bigger. 

Since 2013, AeroVironment's team of innovative engineers from our MacCready Works laboratory has been working with NASA/JPL to design and develop the first Mars drone - a helicopter that will be carried by the Mars 2020 rover. Its name is Ingenuity. The rover was designed and built by NASA/JPL and was recently named Perseverance, or Percy for short. Percy is scheduled to launch in July 2020 and arrive on Mars in early 2021.

The Mars helicopter is a small, autonomous rotorcraft that weighs 4 lbs. (1.8 kg). Its purpose is to demonstrate the viability of aerial robots for planetary exploration.

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