Space

NASA looks at martian plane after losing its Mars helicopter

  • NASA wants to replace the Ingenuity helicopter with something bigger
  • The program is currently codenamed MAGGIE
  • The next Mars plane won’t be a chopper, but it’ll still be able to land and take off vertically

Published on Jan 31, 2024 at 5:46 PM (UTC+4)
by Alessandro Renesis

Last updated on Jan 31, 2024 at 9:16 PM (UTC+4)
Edited by Adam Gray

NASA is working on a new plane that’s designed to fly around Mars.

It’s going to be tricky, chiefly because the Red Planet has an extremely thin atmosphere.

Mars plane hero image
Supercar Blondie

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The space agency’s Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program just ‘lost’ its Mars helicopter.

The aircraft did its job pretty well, and it even managed to capture some pretty astonishing footage of Mars, but it crashed upon landing and became unusable.

NASA's car-sized rover makes startling discovery on Mars
NASA / JPL-Caltech / ASU
NASA's car-sized rover makes startling discovery on Mars
NASA / JPL-Caltech

So instead of replacing it with another helicopter, they’ve decided to go for something bigger and better – an actual plane.

NASA has already given it a name – they call it the ‘MAGGIE’.

The world’s most famous space agency loves a good acronym, as we all know, and MAGGIE is of course no exception.

It stands for Mars Aerial and Ground Intelligent Explorer.

Mars jet
Supercar Blondie
Mars jet
Supercar Blondie

There are a couple of reasons why this plane is going to be rather special, and the fact that it’s designed fo fly on Mars is just one of them.

For starters, this jet is actually designed to take off vertically – like a helicopter or an eVTOL.

While the program does have a name, the plane doesn’t yet have a ‘face’.

NASA is working on it, but it is also outsourcing.

Several third parties are working on different designs on behalf of NASA, including the Computational Fluid Dynamics and Aerodynamics Lab at the University of Miami (talk about needing acronyms).

For reasons that are probably quite obvious, the design has to be 100 percent scientifically sound.

Coming up with a cool concept for a futuristic-looking plane won’t cut it.

Before NASA lost its Mars helicopter it captured something stunning
NASA

Replacing the Ingenuity Helicopter won’t be easy.

The small, solar-powered experimental chopper made over 70 successful flights before crash landing on Mars’ surface on January 25.

And before its ‘demise’, it even managed to take photographs of some wreckage on Mars, too.

The engineers who designed hoped it might fly five or six times.

It’s fair to say Ingenuity definitely exceeded expectations.

Some of the images in this article were created using AI.

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Experienced content creator with a strong focus on cars and watches. Alessandro penned the first-ever post on the Supercar Blondie website and covers cars, watches, yachts, real estate and crypto. Former DriveTribe writer, fixed gear bike owner, obsessed with ducks for some reason.