NASA Sending Chopper to Mars

NASA has long been able to check out Mars on the ground with rovers and landers and from far above with orbital spacecraft. Now, it wants to prove that it can sustainably fly around the planet’s thin atmosphere at low altitude—with a tiny helicopter. The space agency announced on Friday it will send the Mars Helicopter to the Red Planet with the previously announced Mars 2020 rover, set to launch in two years from Florida, reported CNN. The hope is that an aircraft looking like a flying mechanical scout will eventually give scientists another vantage point from which to observe Mars. The helicopter will be mankind’s first attempt to fly a heavier-than-air craft in an atmosphere other than Earth’s, the space agency said. Its mission will be to take five test flights after it lands with the rover.