India’s upcoming Mars mission might feature a helicopter, drawing inspiration from NASA’s trailblazing Ingenuity drone.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is actively developing this concept, envisioning the helicopter as part of an Indian Mars lander scheduled for the early 2030s.

India’s initial mission to the Red Planet, the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), launched in November 2013 and achieved orbit around Mars in September 2014.

Operating for eight years, MOM conducted valuable scientific observations before losing contact with Earth in 2022.

The subsequent Mars mission by ISRO aims for greater complexity. During a recent webinar, Jayadev Pradeep, a scientist at the Space Physics Laboratory, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, revealed plans for a helicopter in the Mars landing mission.

This airborne vehicle will carry an array of scientific instruments for exploring the Martian atmosphere, as reported by India Today, Space.com reported.

Planned payloads for the drone include a temperature sensor, humidity sensor, pressure sensor, wind speed sensor, electric field sensor, and a trace species and dust sensor to analyze the vertical distribution of dust aerosols.

The helicopter is designed to soar up to 328 feet (100 meters) above Mars’ surface, profiling the Martian atmosphere.

In comparison, NASA’s Ingenuity achieved altitudes as high as 79 feet (24 meters) during its over two hours of flight time, covering 10.5 miles (17 kilometers) horizontally.

Written by B.C. Begley