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Ingenuity Mars helicopter: The historic journey to fly on another planet

JacksinPA

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(CNN)When the Ingenuity helicopter takes flight this month, it will be a Wright brothers moment on Mars. This first powered, controlled flight on another planet has been years in the making -- and it has roots in the first such flight on Earth.

It has been 117 years since Orville Wright took flight in Flyer 1 for 12 seconds on a historic December day in 1903 at Kill Devil Hills near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. In the image captured by John Daniels, a member of the US Life-Saving Station at the site, Orville's brother Wilbur can be seen running alongside the aircraft. During the fourth and final flight that day, Wright achieved a nearly 60-second flight.

Millions of miles away and more than a century later, the 4-pound Ingenuity helicopter will use its two pairs of 4-foot (1.2-meter) blades to reach nearly 10 feet (3 meters) up through the thin Martian atmosphere. The miniscule helicopter will hover for 30 seconds, capture images, make a turn and return to the ground.
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"The first flight is special. It's by far the most important flight that we plan to do," said Håvard Grip, Ingenuity's chief pilot at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

I've been to Kitty Hawk & Kill Devil Hills & the Wright Bros. park. The Wrights chose this area because of the heavy on-shore winds & high dunes.
 

(CNN)When the Ingenuity helicopter takes flight this month, it will be a Wright brothers moment on Mars. This first powered, controlled flight on another planet has been years in the making -- and it has roots in the first such flight on Earth.

It has been 117 years since Orville Wright took flight in Flyer 1 for 12 seconds on a historic December day in 1903 at Kill Devil Hills near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. In the image captured by John Daniels, a member of the US Life-Saving Station at the site, Orville's brother Wilbur can be seen running alongside the aircraft. During the fourth and final flight that day, Wright achieved a nearly 60-second flight.

Millions of miles away and more than a century later, the 4-pound Ingenuity helicopter will use its two pairs of 4-foot (1.2-meter) blades to reach nearly 10 feet (3 meters) up through the thin Martian atmosphere. The miniscule helicopter will hover for 30 seconds, capture images, make a turn and return to the ground.
=============================================================================
"The first flight is special. It's by far the most important flight that we plan to do," said Håvard Grip, Ingenuity's chief pilot at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

I've been to Kitty Hawk & Kill Devil Hills & the Wright Bros. park. The Wrights chose this area because of the heavy on-shore winds & high dunes.
The rover brought with it a piece of Flyer 1 fabric, too.
 

(CNN)When the Ingenuity helicopter takes flight this month, it will be a Wright brothers moment on Mars. This first powered, controlled flight on another planet has been years in the making -- and it has roots in the first such flight on Earth.

It has been 117 years since Orville Wright took flight in Flyer 1 for 12 seconds on a historic December day in 1903 at Kill Devil Hills near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. In the image captured by John Daniels, a member of the US Life-Saving Station at the site, Orville's brother Wilbur can be seen running alongside the aircraft. During the fourth and final flight that day, Wright achieved a nearly 60-second flight.

Millions of miles away and more than a century later, the 4-pound Ingenuity helicopter will use its two pairs of 4-foot (1.2-meter) blades to reach nearly 10 feet (3 meters) up through the thin Martian atmosphere. The miniscule helicopter will hover for 30 seconds, capture images, make a turn and return to the ground.
=============================================================================
"The first flight is special. It's by far the most important flight that we plan to do," said Håvard Grip, Ingenuity's chief pilot at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

I've been to Kitty Hawk & Kill Devil Hills & the Wright Bros. park. The Wrights chose this area because of the heavy on-shore winds & high dunes.
Since the time lag is so long, the future flights might rely heavily on Artificial Intelligence. There's no way to control the copter from Earth in real time. I would imagine that after awhile, NASA might try to program scouting missions to places they might want to send the rover. In the past, we've had rovers disabled because dust storms covered the solar panels. Wouldn't it be remarkable if the copter could be used to blow the dust off to keep a rover recharging? I wonder if NASA has considered that.
 
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Considering that Mars has an atmospheric pressure of just 30 pascals (0.0044 psi) at the peak of Olympus Mons, and the lowest point of Hellas Planitia it can only get as high as 1,155 pascals (0.1675 psi), it is truly amazing that we can get anything to fly on Mars.

Granted, Mars only has 37.6% of the gravity that Earth has, but the atmosphere of Mars at its surface is also is 169 times less dense than Earth at sea level. Even factoring in for gravity, a helicopter on Mars would have to generate 64 times more lift in order to fly than it would have to generate on Earth.

Which makes NASA's achievement very impressive.
 
NASA is on a roll - SLS aside, the one part of federal government that has been firing on all cylinders (so to speak). I find the challenge of validating Ingenuity on Earth using tension strings to offset the delta between Earth and Mars gravity to be so fascinating!
 
NASA is a robotics company. The military runs the real space program.
 
NASA is about to fly a helicopter on another planet for the first time

Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/articl...ther-planet-for-the-first-time/#ixzz6rUXqFN7d


The first drone on another world is ready to fly. The Ingenuity helicopter is primed to lift off from the surface of Mars on 12 April, which will be the first powered flight on another planet.

NASA’s Perseverance rover, which launched in July 2020 and arrived on Mars on 18 February, carried the Ingenuity helicopter folded up in its belly. After the rover landed, it dropped Ingenuity onto the ground and drove off so the drone could ready itself for its first flight.

“It has survived launch, it has survived the journey through space, the vacuum and radiation, it has survived the entry and descent and landing onto the surface on the bottom of the Perseverance rover,” said Bob Balaram at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Ingenuity’s chief engineer, during a 23 March press conference. “Everything we could possibly do on Earth has been done, and now it’s time for us to take that same vehicle to Mars and subject it to the ultimate test.”

Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/articl...ther-planet-for-the-first-time/#ixzz6rUYM1Q51
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Neat stuff. In practice, this helicopter may be difficult to control in the Martian winds, which can howl. I've also seen amateurs trying to learn how to fly their RC model helicopters & is very difficult with no wind.
 
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