NASA on Monday confirmed that it managed to take off briefly on the surface of Mars and then landed with a small Ingenuity research helicopter. This is historically the first controlled flight of a motorized machine on the surface of an alien space body.
Ingenuity arrived on the surface of the red planet in February as part of the Perseverance reconnaissance rover. It was originally scheduled to take off by the end of last week, but scientists have encountered a software problem that delayed the launch sequence. However, they subsequently managed to overcome it.
The helicopter took off on Monday morning, while the flight sequence was completely automatic and the scientists had no direct connection with the machine. After completing the flight, the Ingenuity sent data from its measuring instruments and one black-and-white photograph of the Perseverance rover, which it then sent back to Earth.
Shortly after 12:15 CEST, scientists at NASA began receiving the first flight data, which confirmed, for example, the correct speed of rotation of two opposing carbon rotors or that Ingenuity changed the flight altitude during the maneuver.
Subsequently, they also received the first video recordings. On first a photo from a camera on a helicopter facing the ground shows the shadow of a floating machine. Rover also filmed the experiment from afar and caught a helicopter hovering over the surface of the red planet. “You wouldn’t believe what I just saw.” they wrote scientists on the Twitter account Perseverance together with a short video of the flying Ingenuity.
Flying in the very sparse atmosphere of Mars is much more challenging than on Earth, the Ingenuity propellers had to develop at about 2400 rpm, which is many times more than ground helicopters. The helicopter will now be recharged after the flight, and on Tuesday it will send other data to NASA via Perseverance, including color photographs of the Mars horizon.
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