The “Ingenuity” helicopter is on the surface of Mars in order to fly in its skies

The American space agency (NASA) announced that the small helicopter “Ingenuity” installed under the mobile robot “Perseverance” arrived last February on Mars, separated from the main vehicle and is on the surface of the red planet.
The laboratory in charge of the helicopter program at NASA tweeted, Saturday evening, “The helicopter of Mars is on the surface!”
The “Ingenuity” was very light, which resembled a large folded drone installed under the mobile robot “Perseverance” which landed on the surface of the Red Planet on February 18, and remained in place until the robot reached where the helicopter was supposed to take off from.
In another tweet, the lab noted that “the 293 million mile (471 million kilometer) (helicopter) flight ended with that little 10-centimeter jump from the probe’s belly to the surface of Mars.” . “The next test: survival at night,” he added.
A photo accompanying the tweet showed the robot “Perseverance” moving away from the helicopter, and it should be away in less than 25 hours, enough to clear the way for the sunlight the helicopter needs to generate sound. energy using solar panels, so that it can heat up on the cold nights of March.
Ingenuity has so far secured its power from the rover, but it should refuel longer.
“There is a small coolant that helps maintain a temperature of around seven degrees Celsius inside the helicopter, while nighttime temperatures on Mars drop to one degree below zero degrees,” he said. said Bob Palram, chief engineer of the Mars helicopter project. He explained that this “helps protect the main equipment of the aircraft.”
Over the next two days, the ground crew will check to see if the solar panels are working as expected, before starting to test the motors and sensors before the first sortie, which is not expected to take place until April 11.
Ingenuity will conduct its first powered flight operation on a planet other than Earth. If the test passes, it will be a great success, because the density of the Martian atmosphere does not exceed one percent of the density of the Earth’s atmosphere.
This Martian event will be as important as the achievement represented by the planet’s first powered flight in 1903. And “NASA” reports that a small piece of fabric from the Wright brothers’ plane that took off more than a century in North Carolina. , was placed on “Ingenuity” while greeting First Ground Flight, and is therefore currently on Mars.
This first exit is expected to be very straightforward, as the helicopter will take off vertically, then ascend to a height of three meters and hover at that level for 30 seconds, then spin around before turning. land again.
The helicopter will receive its instructions from Earth a few hours before, but it will analyze its position relative to the surface of Mars on its exit, taking 30 photos per second. The mobile robot will be parked at a checkpoint that will allow it to take pictures with its camera of the “Ingenuity” flight. NASA plans to conduct up to five sorties over a month, and they are classified as struggling.
The helicopter consists of four superimposed legs, a frame and two propellers. It measures 1.2 meters in length from one end of the blade to the other. The fans spin at 2,400 rpm, which is five times faster than a regular raft.
The helicopter program cost NASA approximately $ 85 million.
In the future, these vehicles could play a very important role in the exploration of the planet thanks to their ability to reach places that roving robots could not reach (above canyons, for example).
The American space agency is working on another pilot project as part of the “Dragonfly” mission, which will send a drone in 2026 to Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, to reach it in 2034.
“NASA” said that experiments with the flight of non-motorized vehicles on another planet had already been carried out in the past by sending weather balloons to Venus in 1985 as part of the “Vega” program in which the Soviet Union was cooperating. with other countries.