NASA's helicopter on Mars performs first powered aircraft flight on another planet.

 

NASA's helicopter on Mars performs first powered aircraft flight on another planet


History was made on Monday as NASA's helicopter on Mars, Ingenuity, performed the first ever flight of a powered aircraft on another planet.

To say it was no mean feat is an understatement — here's a full explainer on why flying a helicopter on Mars is so damn hard. The moment also came after a painful wait for an all-too-familiar software update to the helicopter's onboard computer last week, following an issue spotted in a rotor test.

But at precisely 3:34 a.m. ET on Monday, NASA successfully conducted a flight from the Martian surface, the first time a controlled, powered aircraft has done so on another planet. The images made it back to Earth at 6:46 a.m. ET.

NASA's official Mars account shared a stunning image of Ingenuity hovering above the Martian surface, and confirmed "more test flights are planned for the coming days."

Perseverance, the rover that allowed Ingenuity to hitch a ride to Mars, had a good view from where it was sitting nearby, capturing the moment when the helicopter hovered at an altitude of 10 feet (three metres) before descending, clocking a total 39.1 seconds of flight.

The four-pound (1.8-kilogram) craft was lifted by its four-foot-long, carbon fibre, counter-rotating rotors that spin at approximately 2,400 rpm.

As seen from the the Space Flight Operations Facility at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, here's the moment when Ingenuity took off, hovered, descended, then touched back down — all to furious applause from the team. It's a really emotional moment, take a look:

"We've been talking for so long about our Wright brothers moment. And here it is," said MiMi Aung, Mars Ingenuity helicopter project manager, following the news of the successful flight.

You can watch the whole thing on YouTube right here, skip to about 38 minutes for the gold:


"Ingenuity is the latest in a long and storied tradition of NASA projects achieving a space exploration goal once thought impossible,” said acting NASA Administrator Steve Jurczyk in a press statement. "The X-15 was a pathfinder for the space shuttle. Mars Pathfinder and its Sojourner rover did the same for three generations of Mars rovers. We don’t know exactly where Ingenuity will lead us, but today’s results indicate the sky — at least on Mars — may not be the limit."

Comments

  1. Congratulations to the flight team, well done.

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  2. Watch Ingenuity fly!

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  3. Congratulations NASA!

    Learn more about Ingenuity mission and discover more on Wikiyarn, a smart Wikipedia browser

    Android app :
    https://t.co/ANvWYsU3ch?amp=1

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  4. Who took the photo?

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  5. Why isn't there any motion blur on the blades? They are spinning incredibly fast, so I was expecting to see some motion blur.

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    1. I thought it took off from the lander? If so the lander would be under it, why is it black and white? Why is the terrain looking like some computer generated low quality graphic repeated? And yeah, Where's the blur? Especially considering the Rpm req

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    2. That's definitely CGI

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  6. Congrats! Surprised you can see the shadow of the blades - I know they're spinning very fast. What is the shutter time on the camera? Was the test flight deliberately picked for when the sun was overhead (for shadow, or for solar cell reasons?)

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    1. And they are a bit lighter, how can that be?

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  7. If nasa had thought about it better they should have pre placed relay sats. between mars and earth so they could send decent packets of information of a much, much higher bytes.

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  8. What is now known about measured power consumption, how far or high is the drone projected to be able to fly there?

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    1. It's a demonstrator. The 90% of the energy is for electronics and battery warming. Remember that ambient temperature is -50°C in the night.

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  9. Buongiorno NASA staremo a vedere le prossime missioni è tutta l'evoluzione ingegneristica che le supporterà tanti auguri andate a esplorare il pianeta rosso Marte.

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  10. Incredible!!! Mind blowing!! You all must be so proud!!

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    1. Mind blowing how they "lost" the tech to get to the moon...

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  11. Congratulations on your amazing first flight on Mars. This is a truly astonishing achievement in human history.

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  12. Congratulations, "That's one small flight for Ingenuity, one giant leap for mankind."

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  13. Thank you all at NASA, JPL (and Percy of course for filming) for the most exiting lunch break I ever had.

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  14. Rotating at the rate of 2500 rpm and still able to get the image of still shadows of rotor blades. What's the shutterspeed?

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  15. Girls Power. Yes you can. Concratulations to all of you.

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  16. Is Amazon testing long distance drone delivery already? ... lol ... on a serious not congrats to the whole team!

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  17. Congrats to INGENUITY team & NASA.
    You guys done a supernatural effort in the history of the man kind.

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  18. Absolutely incredible. Endless respect for everyone that worked on Ingenuity!

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  19. An incredible moment of human ingenuity.

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  20. Congratulations to everyone ... what a great success

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  21. History has bern made today

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  22. FANTASTIC!! Well done NASA!

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  23. It takes dream to actualise a dream.

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  24. Congratulations on a brand new journey.

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