Researchers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab and the University of California, Merced, are testing a drone-mounted methane-detection device that sports a miniaturized version of the NASA Mars Curiosity Rovers’ sensor array.

“We utilized NASA’s investments to make our detector so small and able to withstand some of the issues associated with UAVs,” says Lance Christensen, OPLS principal investigator at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., about the small, open-path laser spectrometer (OPLS) sensor mounted on his test drone.