Elachi Touts Helicopter Scout for Mars Sample-Caching Rover
▻http://spacenews.com/elachi-touts-helicopter-scout-for-mars-sample-caching-rover
JPL has been touting its #Mars Helicopter since January but has not before linked it to any particular mission. The #drone would be solar powered and capable of flying for two to three minutes a day, according to a video JPL uploaded to youtube earlier this year.
A scouting drone could help the Mars 2020 rover avoid the sort of mission-ending misstep that got the smaller Spirit rover — the twin of the still-operational Opportunity rover — stuck in martian sand in 2009.