The Mars Sample Return Program is a proposed mission to collect rock and dust samples on Mars and return them to Earth. Such a mission, which includes contributions from the European Space Agency (ESA), would allow more extensive analysis than that allowed by onboard sensors.
While initially planning to use rovers to collect the sample, which are more comprehensively tested, the Ingenuity helicopters were tested extensively on Mars last year as part of the Perseverance mission.
As of 11 June 2022, Ingenuity has made 29 successful flights, repeatedly setting new records for highest speed and distance travelled during a single flight.
“The conceptual design phase is when every facet of a mission plan gets put under a microscope,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for science at Nasa Headquarters in Washington.
“There are some significant and advantageous changes to the plan, which can be directly attributed to Perseverance’s recent successes...