CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) – NASA’s experimental helicopter Ingenuity took off in the thin air above the dusty red surface of Mars on Monday and reached the first powered flight with a plane on another planet.
The triumph was considered a Wright Brothers moment. The mini 4-pound (1.8 kilogram) copter even carried some wing fabric from the Wright Flyer that made similar history in 1903 in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
“High-altitude data confirms that Ingenuity carried out its first flight, the first flight of a powered aircraft on another planet,” said the helicopter’s main pilot on Earth, Havard Grip, as his voice broke as his teammates burst into applause.
It was a short jump – just 39 seconds – but reached all the major milestones.
Project manager MiMi Aung was jubilant when she picked up the papers containing the plan in case the flight failed. “We’ve been talking about our Wright Brothers moment for so long, and here it is,” she said.
Flight controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California declared success after receiving the data and images via the Perseverance Rover. With perseverance, ingenuity took a ride to Mars and clung to the belly of the stray car upon their arrival in February in an old river delta.
The $ 85 million helicopter demo is considered a high risk, yet high reward. “Every world only gets one first flight,” Aung remarked earlier this month.
Scientists have hailed the news from around the world and even from space.
“A whole new way of exploring the strange terrain in our solar system is now at our disposal,” said Nottingham Trent astronomer Daniel Brown from England.
This first test flight, with even more by Ingenuity, holds great promise, Brown noted. Future helicopters could serve as alien scouts for robbers, and eventually astronauts, in difficult, dangerous areas.
Ground controllers had to wait more than three disturbing hours to find out if the pre-programmed flight had traveled more than 287 million kilometers.
When the news finally came, the operations center filled with applause, cheers and laughter. More followed when the first black-and-white photo of Ingenuity appeared, showing the shadow of the helicopter hovering above the surface of Mars. “The shadow of greatness, #MarsHelicopter completes first flight to another world!” NASA astronaut Victor Glover tweeted from the International Space Station.
Next comes a beautiful color video of the copter’s cleanup, taken by Perseverance, ‘the best host little Ingenuity could ever hope for,’ Aung said, thanking everyone.
The helicopter hovered 30 seconds at its planned altitude of 3 meters and spent 39 seconds in the air, more than three times longer than the first successful flight of the Wright Flyer, which lasted only 12 seconds on 17 December. 1903
To accomplish all this, the helicopter’s twin, counter-rotating rotor blades had to rotate at 2,500 rpm – five times faster than on Earth. With an atmosphere only 1 percent the thickness of the earth, engineers had to build a helicopter that was light enough – with blades that rotated fast enough – to generate this global elevator.
More than six years in the making, Ingenuity is only 49 centimeters long, a thin four-legged hood. The hull, which contains all the batteries, heaters and sensors, is the size of a tissue. The carbon fiber, with foam-filled rotors are the biggest pieces: each pair stretches point from 1.2 meters to point.
The ingenuity also had to be sturdy enough to withstand the Martian wind, and was covered with a solar panel to recharge the batteries, which is essential to survive the Mars nights of minus 130 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 90 degrees Celsius).
NASA chose a flat, relatively rock-free patch for Ingenuity’s airport, which was 10 meters by 10 meters in size. Following Monday’s success, NASA has designated the Mars’ Wright Brothers Field.
“Although these two iconic moments in aviation history can be separated by time and 173 million miles of space, they will now be linked forever,” Thomas Zurbuchen, head of NASA’s scientific mission, announced.
The small helicopter with a huge work has attracted attention from the moment it was introduced with Perseverance last year. Even Arnold Schwarzenegger started being part of Ingenuity on Twitter over the weekend. “Come to the helicopter!” he shouts and repeats a line from his 1987 science film “Predator”.
Up to five more and more ambitious flights are planned, and this could lead the way to a fleet of Mars drones in the decades to come, offering aerial views, transporting packages and serving as a vantage point for human crew. On Earth, technology can enable helicopters to reach new heights, by doing things like navigating the Himalayas more easily.
“It gives us wonderful hope for all of humanity,” Zurbuchen tweeted. Indeed, JPL’s mantra, “Dare Mighty Things”, was printed on a wall of the control room.
The Ingenuity team completed the test flights by the beginning of May so that the rover can continue with its main mission: the collection of rock samples that may contain evidence of previous Mars life, to return to Earth in a decade.
The team plans to be increasingly daring until Ingenuity’s last flight, testing its limits and possibly even destroying the vessel so that it can rest in its place forever after returning its data.
Until then, perseverance will oversee the ingenuity. Flight engineers affectionately call them Percy and Ginny. ‘Big sister look,’ says Elsa Jensen, Malin Space Science Systems, the rover’s chief camera operator.
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