Mars helicopter receives Collier Trophy

The Mars helicopter team is awarded the Collier Trophy for being the first aircraft to achieve powered, controlled flight on another planet. This prestigious award was presented in Washington DC in June by the National Aeronautic Association (NAA). The more than a century old Robert J. Collier Trophy is awarded by the U.S. National Aeronautic Association (NAA) each year marking major achievements in the timeline of aviation, including one of the Wright brothers in the 1910s and the Apollo missions to the moon in the late 1960s.

The pioneer project has been developed by a team of engineers, including from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), AeroVironment and maxon . NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter flies with six precision micro motors (DCX10 S ) with a diameter of 10 millimetres that are installed to move the swashplates . Swashplates are found on all helicopters and are made to adjust the angle of the rotor blades and thereby to control the helicopter’s flightpath. For the small helicopter to fly, it takes an incredible engineering effort. The thin air on Mars is comparable to the conditions on Earth at an altitude of 30 kilometres. This m eans that the helicopter must be extremely light (1.8 kilograms) and can only carry small batteries that must be highly energy efficient.

Award for collective work
“We’re very proud to have joined the team of AeroVironment and JPL at the Collier Trophy award ceremony and share this great honour”, says Florbela Costa, SpaceLab project manager.

© 2022 by maxon Groupl Australia