The Ingenuity mission ended a few weeks ago, with the small NASA drone unable to return to flight due to some damage to the blades, after three years and 72 overflights.
However, other space agencies, such as the Indian one, la ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation), they are already thinking of sending new helicopters and drones to replace it, given the high scientific successes that Ingenuity has allowed to achieve in a short time and the great potential that these means can offer for Martian exploration.
Second Jayadev Pradeep, scientist at the Space Physics Laboratory at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Center in India, it would in fact only be a matter of time before the official announcement that this space agency will equip the next Indian missions with probes and drones very similar to Ingenuity. These will also allow scientists to bring temperature, pressure and humidity sensors to Mars, which have not been integrated with the NASA drone, as well as instruments capable of determining wind speed, concentration and type of dust and an electro-magnetic field sensor.
Pradeep made this statement during a recent live stream, in which he spoke with some young students about how the successes obtained by Ingenuity have allowed ISRO engineers to think about a new mission, eager to bring the first Indian spacecraft to fly past Mars by the first years of the next decade.
According to the intentions of the Indian engineers, the next ISRO helicopter – whose name is not yet known – should be capable of lifting into flight at least up to 100 meters high and have batteries and solar panels that will allow it to reach the longevity of the American mission, which has completed 3 years.
India’s first mission to reach the Red Planet was Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), which was launched in November 2013 and which remained in orbit around Mars from September 2014 until the second half of 2022, making various scientific observations.
However, India is not the only country eager to accomplish the feat of sending a craft into the Martian sky. China and the United States are also focusing heavily on this type of exploration and in the coming years further companies could be created capable of reaching and forming a colony on the Red Planet.