Ingenuity Mars Helicopter
NASA has re-established contact with its Ingenuity helicopter on Mars, the US space agency said recently.
About Ingenuity Mars Helicopter:
- It is a small, autonomous aircraft that flew to Mars aboard NASA’s Perseverance rover.
- It was sent to Mars to perform experimental flight tests to determine if powered, controlled flight at the Red Planet was possible.
- Ingenuity’s mission is experimental in nature and completely independent of the rover’s science mission.
- Ingenuity was deployed to the surface on April 4, 2021.
- On April 19, it became the first aircraft in history to make a powered, controlled flight on another planet.
- It rose to a height of 10 feet, hovered for 30 seconds, and then descended back to the ground.
- The flight lasted 39.1 seconds.
- It managed to fly in Mars’ thin atmosphere, which isn’t conducive for flying.
- It’s piloted by onboard guidance, navigation, and control systems running algorithms.
- Perseverance acts as a relay between the chopper and the earth.
Key Facts about Perseverance Rover:
- It is a robotic explorer to land on Marsas part of NASA’s ongoing Mars 2020 Mission.
- Main Job:Seek signs of ancient life and collect samples of rock and regolith (broken rock and soil) for possible return to Earth.
- The rover will collect samples of rock and soil, encase them in tubes, and leave them on the planet’s surface to be returned to Earth at a future date.
- Launch: It was launched on July 30, 2020,from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
- Landing: Successfully landed on the surface of Mars’s Jezero Crater on February 18, 2021.