On Monday, NASA’s miniature robotic helicopter named ‘Ingenuity’ has successfully accomplished its first powered flight on another world. Ingenuity is the first aircraft on Mars since 18th February 2021 and left the planet early morning to complete its first fully controlled atmospheric flight on another planet beyond earth on 19th April 2021.
The first powered atmospheric flight by this four pound helicopter was completed in one single attempt. It take-off on Tuesday early morning at 3:15 AM EDT and after three hours of its flight the mission was successfully accomplished at 6:15 AM EDT. NASA confirmed the flight on Monday on its official page, thanking and congratulating the team for this successful attempt. It is an 85 million Dollar mission where Ingenuity is used as a technology to demonstrate that the powered controlled flight might be possible on the Red Planet i.e. Mars.
The mission control said that this solar-powered helicopter rose and flew above the Martian surface, and then finally landed back down. The success of the mission was documented by a photo that was received from the on-board navigation camera attached on the Ingenuity. The photo shows a shadow cast by this miniature robotic helicopter above the surface of Mars. A colour video also came moments after showcasing the successful flight.
While confirming the flight, Ingenuity’s chief pilot Håvard Grip said “Ingenuity has performed its first flight,” he added it is the 1st flight of this “powered aircraft on another planet!” Jet Propulsion Laboratory (NASA) in Pasadena, California are the creator and manufacturer of Ingenuity who have also confirmed the flight while celebrating the success in the control room.
Ingenuity is basically a part of Mars 2020 mission of NASA where drone rotorcraft are going to be used for exploring the possible use of flying probes on other worlds beyond earth. This will support their future development of driving routes for Mars rovers.
Earlier on February 18 this year, Ingenuity flew to Mars being attached to the Perseverance, and successfully landed inside the Jezero with the 2.7 billion Dollar rover and since then it was there until it took a flight today.
There are many contributors who have joined this Ingenuity project such as AeroVironment, Inc., along with the NASA Langley Research Center, and the NASA Ames Research Center, and the project is controlled and managed by MiMi Aung at JPL. If everything goes as planned with Ingenuity then NASA may possibly construct on its design for extending the aerial module of future missions on Mars.
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