NASA Tests Drones in Death Valley for Future Mars Flights

NASA has been busy preparing the next generation of autonomous explorers, and this year that meant flying drones across the scorching dunes of Death Valley, a place so unforgiving that even your sunscreen wants sunscreen.

The agency needed terrain as bland and empty as the Martian sand fields that once confused the Ingenuity helicopter, so engineers headed straight to the hottest and driest real estate on Earth to put new navigation software through its paces as reported by the internal Jet Propulsion Lab press.

A Jet Propulsion Laboratory team brought three research drones to test Extended Robust Aerial Autonomy, one of twenty five Mars technology projects funded this year. These efforts aim to build future aircraft that can fly farther, adapt faster, and hopefully complain less than Ingenuity did when it ran out of interesting ground textures to look at.

Ingenuity was designed to track visual features on rough terrain, which worked beautifully until the helicopter had to cross smooth dunes that offered fewer reference points than a blank sheet of paper.

JPL researcher and drone pilot Roland Brockers explained that the next generation must be flexible enough to handle slopes, sand fields, and unpredictable terrain without needing a therapist afterward.

Field Sites Become Living Laboratories

Death Valley has served as NASA’s desert sandbox since the 1970s, and places like Mars Hill and the Mesquite Flats Sand Dunes still give scientists the ideal mix of rugged features and stunning views, although the heat is a bonus very few asked for.

During this year’s tests the JPL team operated under temperatures above 113 degrees Fahrenheit (45 Celsius degrees), gathering beneath a small canopy that probably felt like the last patch of shade in the universe.

Even in those conditions the flights produced valuable results, including how various camera filters help drones follow the ground and how new landing algorithms perform in cluttered terrain. The research was significant enough that the National Park Service granted only the third research drone permit ever issued for Death Valley, proving once again that NASA can get access to places even most tourists are smart enough to avoid at noon.

The team later moved to Dumont Dunes in the Mojave Desert, once used to test Curiosity rover systems. The dunes offered different patterns and textures, which gave engineers a broader view of how the new navigation system handles featureless environments.

Nathan Williams, a JPL geologist and Ingenuity operator, said field testing beats computer simulations because interesting science targets rarely appear in friendly locations. If they did, rovers would be having a much easier life.

New Robots Take Shape for Future Mars Missions

Farther east, engineers at White Sands National Park tested a robot dog called LASSIE M, which uses sensors in its legs to feel the ground and adjust its gait.

This allows it to detect soft or crusty surfaces and move with the confidence of a robot that never skipped leg day. The idea is to send these nimble scouts ahead of rovers or human crews so they can explore terrain that wheels would reject immediately.

Meanwhile at NASA’s Langley Research Center, engineers are building the Mars Electric Reusable Flyer, a long range robotic aircraft that trades Ingenuity’s compact frame for a winged design.

The full version will be about as long as a small school bus, which makes it the kind of aircraft that would definitely need its own parking spot on Mars. A half scale prototype is already undergoing flight tests to study aerodynamics and structural behavior in thin air.

With parallel efforts developing new tools, power systems, drills and advanced autonomous software, NASA is assembling a diverse fleet of future explorers that will roam, glide and trot across the Red Planet. Each test brings the agency closer to a new era of robotic exploration.

DroneXL’s Take

NASA is using some of the harshest terrain on Earth to prepare robots for even harsher terrain on Mars, and the results are both promising and entertaining.

Between drone flights in blistering heat and robot dogs practicing their best desert strut, the agency is clearly gearing up for a new generation of explorers. Ingenuity proved that flight on Mars is possible, and these new machines show that the next wave will be smarter, tougher and a lot more adventurous.

Photo credit: NASA