
Can a 'Dropship Quadcopter' Deploy Rovers on Mars? - spectruman
http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/military-robots/esa-dropship-quadcopter-rover-mars#.U7rJl9KNb1M.hackernews
======
cratermoon
The authors seem to have completely ignored the fact that the atmosphere on
Mars is far thinner than on Earth. Comparatively, it's a vacuum. A helicopter
that could fly on Mars would have to have huge blades running at very high
RPMs. While this NASA article plays up the possibilities:
[http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/k-4/features/F_Hel...](http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/k-4/features/F_Helicopters_on_Mars_prt.htm)
it seems to dismiss aerodynamics by invoking magic "ultra-lightweight hardware
components".

------
bradleyland
Ugh, what a confusing mess; talk about burying the lede. The important program
development here isn't the quadcopter at all. The quadcopter is just a test
mule for a new navigation system that uses GPS, inertial guidance, and vision-
based systems in conjunction to navigate an environment. In particular, the
vision-based system was developed from scratch in about 8-months.

The ESA website has an article as well, but it also loses the focus of the new
developments in favor of making the story more "newsworthy". The fact that the
quadcopter is a test mule is never pointed out directly, so all the laymen
reading the article are left with the impression that the ESA plans to send
quadcopters to Mars at some point.

[http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Technology/Dropship_offers...](http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Technology/Dropship_offers_safe_landings_for_Mars_rovers)

