The Skyfall helicopters will carry cameras and ground-penetrating radar to scout a future landing site, to understand the slopes and hazards for human-scale landers," Steve Sinacore, the program executive for NASA's Space Reactors Office, said during the briefing.
"They will also map and characterize the subsurface water ice to find out where the water ice deposits are, along with the size, depth and other important characteristics," he added.
But that isn't all that is exciting about the mission. The spacecraft carrying the helicopters to Mars--the SR-1 Freedom--will make use of nuclear electric propulsion (NEP). Specifically, it will use a nuclear reactor to generate electricity which will then power electric thrusters.
If goes according to plan, the mission will launch in December 2028 and arrive at Mars about a year later. And that might not be the end of the line for SR-1 Freedom; NASA may decide to keep flying the spacecraft out into the solar system after it deploys the Skyfall choppers, according to Sinacore. The mission architecture, like much of NASA's exploration portfolio, is not yet finalized.
NASA? on time?
ReplyDeleteI know, but they do have a new administrator who seems more focused on the mission than the DEI politics.
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