The Ingenuity helicopter simply sits under the belly of the Perseverance Rover on Mars.
NASA / JPL-Caltech
NASA descends from its innovative detection Vernuf Mars helicopter All the way back to the historic first flight that Orville and Wilbur Wright undertook in 1903 with Kitty Hawk. A small piece of dust from the famous Wright plane is now in the residence on the red planet, under Ingenuity’s solar panel.
Tuesday in a NASA briefing, Engineer’s chief engineer Bob Balaram unveiled the surprise package, which he described as the size of a postage stamp. The unbleached muslin material, which comes from a wing cover, draws a connection between the first powered, controlled flight on Earth and what NASA hopes will be the first powered, controlled flight on another planet.
Ingenuity can start this morning on April 8, but first it has to be delivered by the Perseverance Rover at the Mars Airport location. It also goes through an extensive series of controls before attempting to take off and hover about 10 meters (3 meters) above the planet’s surface.
The Perseverance Rover is a few days away from the helicopter drop-off point, a relatively flat and clear area in the Jezero crater. Once Ingenuity unfolds and set down on the ground, the rover will carefully move away to make sure the rotor craft’s solar panel can work to power its batteries and keep it warm through the cold night.
The rotor craft’s mission is scheduled to last 31 Earth Days, but the first night is perhaps the most important. “It’s a big challenge to deploy to the surface, but it’s just a bigger one to just survive the first night on Mars without the rover protecting and holding it.”
This annotated image of Mars shows Ingenuity’s airport and flight zone in the Jezero crater.
NASA / JPL-Caltech / University of Arizona
The Rover will set up shop on an outside site to take pictures and videos of Ingenuity’s short first flight.
If the initial glide goes well, NASA will try longer and higher flights. The entire flight zone covers an area of about 90 meters long, which gives Ingenuity enough space to stretch the blades if necessary.
The 4-pound (1.8 kilogram) helicopter is a technological demonstration, an experiment that could show whether this type of flight is even possible under the difficult conditions of Mars. The planet’s thin atmosphere and dazzling winds make it a challenging place for Ingenuity to work. If it works, it could open doors for new forms of exploration in other worlds.
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