NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory demonstrated a short video showing the concept of a new Martian helicopter.
The descendant of the famous Ingenuity, which is still tentatively called the Mars Chopper, is currently at the conceptual design stage. However, it is planned that in addition to reconnaissance, as Ingenuity did, such a helicopter could carry additional scientific instruments to study places that the rovers cannot reach. As you can see in the video, the proposed format is a hexacopter, i.e. a vehicle with six propellers. Obviously, it is much heavier than the Ingenuity and has a longer flight range, payload and maneuverability.
The concept of the Mars Chopper was discussed by project manager Teddy Tsanetos during a briefing at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in Washington, DC.
As a reminder, the Ingenuity robotic reconnaissance drone arrived on Mars with the Perseverance rover on February 18, 2021, and worked until January 18, 2024, making 72 flights with a total duration of more than 2 hours, covering more than 17 km, although only a few short flights were originally planned during the first two weeks of the mission.
It is not yet known when the Mars Chopper will be able to take to the skies of Mars. A new mission to Mars involving the rover, which is needed as a base for the helicopter, is not even planned at this time.