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The Mars Helicopter is part of the NASA Mars 2020 rover mission scheduled to launch in July of 2020. Its goal is to demonstrate the viability and potential of heavier-than-air vehicles in the Martian atmosphere. In this paper we investigate the performance of the Mars Helicopter and the effect of the Martian atmosphere on airfoil performance characteristics. We proceed to generate a rotor performance model for the Mars Helicopter for comprehensive analyses using a Computational Fluid Dynamics analysis. Performance results show good agreement with free flight experimental test data at Martian atmospheric densities, obtained from the 25-ft Space Simulator at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

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This page is a summary of: Improved Mars Helicopter Aerodynamic Rotor Model for Comprehensive Analyses, AIAA Journal, September 2019, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA),
DOI: 10.2514/1.j058045.
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