NASA is working on a helicopter-style drone for the second mission to Mars in 2020, which will be sent up alongside a revamped version of the Curiosity Rover.

The drone will be capable of covering three times more land than the Rover in one day, allowing NASA scientists and researchers to view more of the Red Planet.

Like Us on Facebook

Due to the low atmosphere on Mars, it is hard to recreate the issues a drone may have on the Red Planet. Gravity is weaker than on Earth, which is a plus for NASA when it comes to flying on Mars.

"You might think it's actually easier to fly one of these helicopters on Mars because it's actually three-eighths the gravity we have here on Earth, but it's 100 times less atmosphere," explained NASA mechanical engineer Mike Meacham.

The drone sounds like a typical commercial drone seen on Earth but with a few adjustments for NASA, like high quality cameras to record and zoom. NASA will also need to make sure the drone can land on hard ground and not break.

In terms of energy, NASA will add solar panels to the drone, allowing it to be fully self-sufficient. It will communicate with the rover, which will in turn send images back to NASA every few days. 

Even though having the drone on Mars could be a large breakthrough, NASA is putting this firmly as a side project to the main mission of an advanced Curiosity Rover on Mars by 2020.

Several space experts have chimed in on the lack Mars missions, as it becomes more critical to get people and colonization onto Mars. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk claims it will be humanity's greatest achievement, and could save the human race should a natural disaster happen on Earth.

Currently, not much is known about the state of Mars for humans, other than it gets extremely cold in the night. In the next ten years, space experts claim we should have at least some type of life on Mars, hopefully the human kind.

TagsNASA, Mars, Curiosity Rover, drone, Mars mission