If you’ve ever had a drone malfunction in mid-air and had to watch your precious UAV drop out of the sky like a brick, you’ve felt a sense of inevitability and helplessness. It’s this exact moment of needless acceptance that California-based company Mars Parachutes is trying to save us from. MARS, or 'Multi-Rotor Aerial Recovery System', makes parachutes for a variety of consumer drones—chutes which deploy automatically, using a fairly sophisticated system.

According to WeTalkUAV, MARS chutes were designed largely around DJI drones, but they function with almost any consumer UAV on the market. The Mars Phantom 4 Lite package, which as of now only functions with the titular DJI Phantom 4, includes a ‘Mayday’ system alongside its chute. This system will immediately deploy the chute as soon as things go wrong. Though the technical aspects seem like common sense, the functionality is still impressive.

The Mayday system is comprised of 3-axis gyro and 3-axis accelerometer systems, and a barometer. This triumvirate works in tandem to detect any malfunction to tell the chute when to deploy. If there’s a motor malfunction—the chute deploys. Is the drone suddenly upside down? The chute deploys. Is the UAV in free fall? You got it—the chute deploys.

Perhaps the most important trait of a MARS chute is that it’s reusable. They’re easily repacked and reused as long as their structural integrity is in tact. Added to that, if you’re feeling extra paranoid, you can strap more than one of these onto your previous UAV. But how reliable are they?