O Ingenuity — naivety, in free translation —, a NASA helicopter on Mars, completed its first flight on the red planet today, Monday, April 19. The small and friendly robot-helicopter was the first aircraft to fly in a controlled way on another planet, which, let's face it, is quite a step for humanity. 263g32
According to the plans made here on Earth, the NASA helicopter on Mars must have flown for 30 seconds at a maximum height of three meters. It may not seem like much, but it must be considered that this was done on another planet. Furthermore, the next flights will be more daring and dangerous, with distances of up to 300 meters to be covered.
of the JPL (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, or NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in free translation), responsible for developing and controlling the small helicopter, were ecstatic with the news, as can be seen on the agency's official Twitter .
No wonder the NASA helicopter flight on Mars needed special care, given that the red planet's atmosphere is much less dense than that on Earth. For comparison, it would be the equivalent of a land helicopter trying to stay stable at 30.000 meters up here.
For that, the rotations per minute (the abbreviation is RPM) of the propellers had to be drastically increased, reaching up to 2500, a number much higher than that achieved by land helicopters, which are capable of making up to 500 rotations per minute. All this was thought of by the development team, which placed a Snapdragon 801 processor with Linux to ensure better use of energy.
Ingenuity came docked to the Perseverance spacecraft, which landed on Mars in February 2021. Together, the two robots will analyze the Martian surface and send data to NASA, which will study the results obtained. It is worth mentioning, however, that the main mission of the NASA helicopter on Mars is to test the flight capability of autonomous vehicles, which should happen with several tests over the next few weeks.
Below are some images captured by NASA.
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Ingenuity was placed on the Martian surface in early April. (Image: NASA via Wikipedia) -
The propeller blades are specially designed to ensure stability in flight. (Image: NASA via Wikipedia) -
NASA's Mars helicopter does a quick test to confirm it's operational. (Image: NASA via Wikipedia) -
First image captured by Ingenuity. (Image: NASA via Wikipedia) -
First black and white image of Ingenuity, showing its shadow. (Image: NASA via Wikipedia)
To the most curious, who want to take a look at the flight captured by the Perseverance cameras:
And you can also watch all NASA coverage of the event:
So, did you like this phenomenal event? Tell us in the comments!
Sources: Digital Trends | Wikipedia | CNN | Twitter
