NASA’s Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) wants to send a swarm of “Marsbees” or robot bees to Mars.

NASA previously flew a robot on Mars in the form of the Ingenuity Helicopter, which sent its final message back to Earth earlier this year. The robot made 72 flights over 1,000 Martian days, a task that the planet’s atmosphere makes more difficult.

“The Red Planet has a significantly lower gravity – one-third that of Earth’s – and an extremely thin atmosphere with only 1 percent the pressure at the surface compared to our planet,” NASA explained in a press release when Ingenuity made its first flight. “This means there are relatively few air molecules with which Ingenuity’s two 4-foot-wide (1.2-meter-wide) rotor blades can interact to achieve flight.”

The Marsbees, which insects inspire in nature, would be about the size of a bumblebee with cicada-sized wings. The robots would be equipped with communication devices and sensors, enabling them to fly around the red planet, collect data, and return to a rover acting as their base.

“Migrating flying animals showcase astonishing long-range flights, disproportionate to their sizes. For example, Monarch butterflies (wingspan: 10 cm [4 inches]) fly 4,000 km [2,485 miles] from North American to central Mexico, which has been reported to fly through thin air as high as 11,000 feet [3,353 meters]. The wandering albatross (wingspan: 3.1 m [10 feet]) can circumnavigate Antarctica 2-3 times, covering 120,000 km [74,565 miles],” the Kanglab at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) explains. “While the aerodynamic mechanism behind these long-range flights is currently unknown, recent studies have shown that the use of lightweight flexible wings leads to energy efficient flapping wing motions. Also, the compliant nature of the flexible wings is surmised to aid soaring and gliding in the unsteady atmosphere.”

The robots are designed with energy efficiency in mind, with a predicted flight time of 16 minutes with commercially available battery technology. Another appeal of the Marsbee design is its low weight compared to other robots, as this provides more flexibility.

“Our preliminary numerical results suggest that a bumblebee with a cicada wing can generate sufficient lift to hover in the Martian atmosphere,” Associate Professor at UAH Chang-Kwon Kang explains on the NIAC website. “Moreover, the power required by the Marsbee will be substantially reduced by utilizing compliant wing structures and an innovative energy harvesting mechanism. “