Overview
Following Ingenuity’s successful flights from 2021 to 2024, NASA is preparing a new endeavor called SkyFall that will deploy three rotorcraft to the Martian surface. Their main task is to locate water ice in the shallow subsurface, a critical resource for future human missions.
Technical Features
Each SkyFall helicopter carries a ground‑penetrating radar whose antenna is made of a flexible fabric and can be extended beneath the craft. This placement brings the sensor close to the ground without interfering with the rotors, improving sensitivity to ice layers within a few meters of regolith.
- The fabric antenna reduces mass and offers greater adaptability compared with rigid metal designs.
- The radar operates at a frequency that penetrates dry dust efficiently while reflecting strongly off ice.
Scientific Objectives
The primary goal is to map and characterize frozen water deposits in the top one to two meters of Martian soil, informing the selection of landing sites for astronaut habitats and assessing water availability for life support and propellant production.
Secondary objectives include studying subsurface stratigraphy to glean clues about Mars’ climatic history. Building on Ingenuity’s proof‑of‑concept, SkyFall extends aerial exploration capabilities for planetary science.