AeroVironment wins NASA contract to build three Mars helicopters for SkyFall

what happened

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory awarded AeroVironment's MacCready Works team a contract to co-design and co-manufacture three autonomous helicopters for the agency's SkyFall mission to Mars, per AeroVironment's Aug. 27 announcement. AeroVironment will lead design and production of the helicopters' rotor systems, airframes, structures, avionics integration, and science-payload accommodation, while JPL develops the power system, electronics, algorithms, and software; each helicopter will carry a JPL-developed ground-penetrating radar to map subsurface ice, plus instruments for atmospheric and environmental data. NASA is targeting a November 2028 launch window. The helicopters deploy directly from the carrier spacecraft in a "SkyFall maneuver," entering the Martian atmosphere and landing under their own power without a single-use lander or host rover, per Military Embedded Systems.

why it matters

SkyFall extends AeroVironment and JPL's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter partnership into a repeatable planetary-science supply line rather than a one-off technology demo; MacCready Works head Jeff Rodrian said the goal is showing "Mars helicopters can be built as a repeatable product line, not a one-off delivery." The helicopters are the primary payload for NASA's nuclear-propelled SR-1 Freedom spacecraft, which the agency priced at $2.1 billion in July, so this contract is the first named commercial hardware supplier locked into that mission's path to a 2028 launch.

signal-to-noise

quick facts

Companies

AeroVironment, NASA

Category

science

Impact

notable

SNR

4 / 5

Event date

2026-08-27

Published

2026-08-30 05:26 UTC