NASA’s small helicopter Ingenuity was supposed to make at least five flights to Mars, but it made 70, surpassing all expectations. NASA plans to develop a larger, more powerful and high-altitude ship on Mars. Work is ongoing on this project, the first tranches of funding have also been listed, and Maggie can make history on Mars in many years.

The solar plane could fly a maximum of 170 km after a full charge and could fly 1,000 meters above the Martian soil. It will be significantly larger than the Ingenuity and will have a much longer range.

The project is called MAGGIE (an acronym for “Mars Aerial and Ground Intelligent Explorer”).

This new aircraft could perform three types of scientific missions on Mars: searching for water, understanding the source of the Red Planet’s weak magnetic field, and searching for signals related to the presence of methane.

The project is still in its infancy, it is in the concept phase and there is no certainty that it will be fully developed unless it is deemed feasible.

The great advantage of a giant and long-range rovers would be that, at least in theory, the entire surface of Mars could be mapped using such an aircraft.

According to one estimate, such a plane can cover more than 16,000 km in a Martian year (that is, two Earth years).

Sources: space.com, Independent