He flew! Mars helicopter takes off over the red planet | Space

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First helicopter flight to Mars, grayscale image of shadow on the surface of Mars.

As the Mars helicopter – Ingenuity – hovered above the surface of Mars on April 19, 2021, its own navigation camera captured its shadow on the Martian surface. This first successful flight was a technological demonstration for powered flight to Mars. The helicopter climbed to Mars attached to the belly of the Perseverance rover, arriving on Mars on February 18, 2021. Image via NASA TV.

NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter successfully flew through the fine airs of Mars on April 19, 2021. The team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., Burst into applause when flight controllers announced the success of this first demonstration flight. It was the first motorized guided flight to another planet. A handful of more test flights are expected to follow in a month-long campaign that aims to show aerial exploration is feasible in Mars’ thin atmosphere.

NASA coverage began at 10:15 a.m. UTC (6:15 a.m. EDT; translate UTC to your time) on April 19. A post-flight press conference is scheduled for 6 p.m. UTC (2 p.m. EDT) on Monday. You can watch on NASA TV, the NASA smartphone app and on the NASA website. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. – the facility that manages the helicopter’s activity – was broadcasting the flight live on its YouTube and Facebook channels.
More NASA details here on Ingenuity’s first flight coverage

Click here for the NASA Mars Helicopter Factsheet

First helicopter flight to Mars, seen from the NASA / JPL control room, with red-clad applause seated around a U-shaped table, with multiple monitors and a mock-up of the helicopter in the center.

The team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory applauded when they learned of the helicopter’s maiden flight. The text on the left wall reads “Dare the mighty things”. Image via NASA TV.

Orange-colored desolate Mars landscape with a small helicopter in the center after its first flight.

Distant view towards the new Mars helicopter location (front, center) in front of the red desert landscape of Mars. Image via NASA TV.

The helicopter’s first experimental flight was originally scheduled for April 11. Before the flight could take place, NASA had to reinstall the software to fix a problem that arose when engineers tried to change the helicopter from before the flight at flight fashion.

Ingenuity arrived on Mars on February 18 with the Perseverance rover, after making the long journey to the red planet nestled in the rover’s belly. JPL wrote in a Tweeter posted at the start of the day on April 8:

An animated model of the Mars helicopter.

The Mars helicopter – Ingenuity – is a technological demonstration that accomplished the first powered flight on Mars. The helicopter climbed to Mars attached to the belly of the Perseverance rover, arriving on Mars on February 18, 2021. Image via NASA.

Ingenuity’s flight preparation process was slow and careful, in part because the 4-pound (1.8 kg) helicopter made the trip to Mars in a folded configuration. It was nestled inside the rover’s body behind a protective shield. But after the rover dropped that shield and made its way to the airfield, helicopter personnel ordered the aircraft to slowly unpack and unfold. Next, Perseverance had to place Ingenuity directly on the Martian surface and move away, allowing the helicopter’s solar panels to start supporting the plane.

Ingenuity’s blade unlocking and testing marked the last major preparation steps before the helicopter attempted its first flight. NASA officials first tested the blades at 50 and then 2400 rpm before the helicopter took off.

Due to Ingenuity’s success, future missions to the Red Planet can usually include helicopters, which could act as spotters for the rovers and collect data on their own, NASA officials said. Ingenuity will not collect any data because the small rotorcraft does not carry any scientific instruments. But he will document his next flights with a high-resolution camera. And Perseverance will also watch, from a safe distance. There’s even a chance the rover could record audio from Ingenuity’s flights using its two on-board microphones, NASA officials said.

Meanwhile, as Ingenuity prepared for its flight and finally took off for its maiden flight on April 19, 2021, Perseverance looked around and sent back footage. Among other activities, the car-sized rover took photos of its own tire tracks and sophisticated science branch.

A gorgeous new photo mosaic (below) shows NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter. Community scientist Seán Doran created it by stitching together 62 photos taken by the rover. Doran posted via his Twitter account, @_TheSeaning. He said he subjected the constituent images to a “process of noise reduction, repair and scaling” before combining them: a process he describes as “laborious.” The payoff is seen below.

Ingenuity also took its first color photo on April 3, shortly after being lowered into Martian land by the Perseverance rover. The image shows the floor of the 28-mile-wide (45 km) Jezero Crater and part of the two-wheeled NASA Perseverance Mars rover. Doran told Space.com:

Focusing on the connection between Percy and Ginny was an obvious choice for this composition. It’s very exciting to see new photos from another planet, but this one is very special, and I expect the tech demo to be a big hit.

Brown soil with light brown gravel and partially visible rover wheels.

This low-resolution view of the ground of Jezero de Mars crater and part of the two-wheeler of NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover was captured by the agency’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter on April 3, 2021. This is the first photo color taken by Ingenuity on the Martian surface. . Image via NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Once Ingenuity’s work is done, Perseverance will begin the main goals of its own science mission. The six-wheeled robot will search for signs of ancient life on Mars and collect and cache dozens of samples for future return to Earth.

NASA chose Jezero Crater as the landing site for the Perseverance rover with good reason. Scientists believe the area was once inundated and was home to an ancient water river delta more than 3.5 billion years ago. The channels of the river spread over the crater wall and created a lake, carrying clay minerals from its surroundings. Microbial life could have lived in the crater during one or more of these wet periods, and if so, signs of their remains could be found in the sediment of the lake bed or shore. Scientists will study how the region formed and evolved, look for signs of past life, and collect rock and soil samples from Mars that may preserve these signs.

Boxy 4-legged device with large rotor blades on brown landscape with part of the rover visible.

In this artist’s concept, NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter rises above the surface of the Red Planet as the Perseverance rover (partially visible on the left) pulls away. Image via NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Bottom line: The Mars Ingenuity helicopter first flew on Monday, April 19, 2021, early in the morning. Flight coverage began at 10:15 a.m. UTC (6:15 a.m. EDT; translate UTC to your time). A post-flight press conference is scheduled for Monday at 6:00 p.m. UTC (2:00 p.m. EDT). You can watch on NASA TV and the NASA Smartphone App, NASA’s website. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory – the facility that manages the helicopter’s activity – broadcast the flight live on its YouTube and Facebook channels.

Learn more about EarthSky: Touchdown! Perseverance successfully lands on Mars

Via Space.com

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