Alva Review-Courier -

PASADENA, Calif. (AP) — NASA is planning to send a tiny autonomous helicopter to Mars on its next rover mission to the red planet.

The space agency announced Friday that the helicopter will be carried aboard the Mars 2020 rover as a technology demonstration to test its ability to serve as a scout and to reach locations not accessible by ground.

The helicopter is being developed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.

The craft weighs less than 4 pounds (1.8 kilograms), has a fuselage about the size of a softball and twin, counter-rotating blades that will spin at almost 3,0...