 |
| Ingenuity unimpeded continues its first historic journey |
NASA's Innovation Helicopter first flew over the surface of Mars, and is a milestone in the alien exploration program.
The flight took place earlier this morning and NASA has received confirmation that Ingenuity helicopters have flown it to Mars on the Perseverance rover.
This is a huge achievement because the air on Mars is so thin that making solar powered cars like Ingenuity is a huge challenge.
The Creation's first flight is self-contained, and the only way the ground crew can control it is to send timely commands to mark the start and end of the 40-second flight.
Mars accounts for about a third of Earth's gravity, and its very thin atmosphere provides only 1% of the pressure at the Earth's surface, which means that the basic rules of flight are different, and helicopters have performed many tests for the first time.
Although this sounds like a short flight, it offers great value in terms of data collected during the helicopter flight.
A helicopter has a more powerful processor than the persevering rover itself because it wants to collect a large amount of data about what happens during a flight test to take it to the rover and then to the ground.
This is the first journey by car to the surface of Mars. While there is a lot of modeling and simulation work out there that can predict the direction of things, no one really knows what will happen until they are tested first-hand.
Due to the low atmosphere on Mars, Ingenuity's propellers must be spinning at breakneck speeds of 2,500 rpm, while helicopters on Earth need around 400-500 rpm. This is due to the weak atmosphere on Mars, which creates technical challenges.
There are important potential applications for this type of flight, one of which is the development of future exploration missions that will enable NASA to deploy aircraft to the "red planet".
You can explore things like caves and mountain peaks that hikers cannot reach.
NASA hopes to see if the spacecraft can be used in human Mars exploration in the future.
Mars explorers will take full advantage of their ability to use planes and ground vehicles when they get there.
NASA is now dumping data to get more information about the flight and recovering more photos and videos as the helicopter climbs, flies and lands.
After this flight, NASA plans more attempts to test the flight based on residual strength and other criteria, because it already knows creativity can fly and complete the flight as planned.