The tiny "marscopter' will make its way to the Red Planet in 2020 ( Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech [Public domain])

Over the years, NASA has successfully deployed several rovers, landers, and orbiters to Mars. While the science laboratories continue to provide invaluable data about the Red Planet, their limited, or zero — as is the case with landers — mobility, restricts the space exploration vehicles to areas close to the original landing site. To obtain a more comprehensive view of Mars, the US Space Agency plans to send a fully-autonomous miniature test helicopter with the Mars 2020 rover, scheduled for launch in July 2020.