NASA tests drones in Death Valley to prepare future Mars aircraft for barren dunes and thin skies
NASA is testing new drone flight software in California deserts to prepare future Mars aircraft for featureless sand and hazardous landing zones.
Engineers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory took three research drones to Death Valley National Park and the Mojave Desert this year to refine navigation software known as Extended Robust Aerial Autonomy. The work targets a key weakness exposed by Ingenuity, whose vision-based navigation struggled over bland terrain with too few visible features, including during its final flights on Mars. NASA said the campaign is one of 25 technology efforts funded through its Mars Exploration Program over the past year to expand how robots can explore the planet with less human oversight.
The team flew at Mars Hill and Mesquite Flats Sand Dunes during field campaigns in late April and early September after receiving what NASA described as only the third-ever license for research drone flights in Death Valley. Temperatures reached 113 degrees Fahrenheit, or 45 degrees Celsius, as engineers monitored the aircraft under a temporary canopy. Early results showed that different camera filters can improve ground tracking over low-texture terrain and that new algorithms can help drones choose safer landing spots in cluttered areas such as rocky slopes and boulder fields.
NASA also extended testing to Dumont Dunes in the Mojave Desert, where rippled sand offered another analogue for Martian terrain that can confuse onboard navigation. The agency said field trials provide a broader view than computer models and limited orbital imagery because scientifically valuable targets are often located in difficult terrain. NASA has used Death Valley as a Mars analogue site since the 1970s, when it was preparing for Viking landings, and later returned to test components tied to Perseverance’s precision landing system.
The drone work sits alongside a broader push into autonomous Mars robotics. At White Sands National Park in New Mexico, researchers from NASA’s Johnson Space Center tested a doglike robot called LASSIE-M that senses whether ground is soft, loose, or crusted and adapts its gait to cross rocky or sandy surfaces that could threaten wheeled rovers. In Virginia, NASA’s Langley Research Center has been testing a half-scale prototype of the Mars Electric Reusable Flyer, a winged aircraft with twin propellers designed to take off vertically, hover, and then cover long distances while mapping the surface below. Together, the projects point to a future in which more capable flying and walking robots reach terrain beyond the practical limits of today’s rovers, widening options for science missions and eventual human exploration.