Vertex
Flight in thin atmospheres
- Status
- Flight testing — low-density chamber
A coaxial rotorcraft that flies where air is 1% of Earth’s, scouting kilometres ahead of every ground asset.
Vertex turns a two-dimensional mission into a three-dimensional one. It launches from the back of Ares, climbs 400 metres, and returns a centimetre-scale map of everything the rover will meet tomorrow.
- 01Centimetre-scale photogrammetry
- 02Route scouting for ground assets
- 03Plume and dust-devil tracking
- 04Relay hop for buried comms
Dust-tolerant lift
Blade pitch adapts in real time to density shifts during dust season, when lift can fall by a third within an hour.
Visual-only navigation
No satellite constellation, no magnetic field. Vertex localises from terrain features alone, at 90 frames per second.
Return-to-base guarantee
Energy accounting reserves the exact charge needed to reach the nearest Lumen node before every departure.
Vertex
Figures are current qualification values and are updated as campaigns close.
- Mass
- 11.6 kg
- Rotor span
- 2.9 m coaxial
- Endurance
- 14 min per charge
- Ceiling
- 400 m AGL
- Survey rate
- 1.8 km² per sol
Talk to the team behind this system
Programme enquiries, technical documentation and partnership requests.