Craft was autonomously controlled from Earth, nearly 180 million miles away.
NASA s Ingenuity has a camera on board that captured the craft s shadow as it lifted off.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
One hundred and seventeen years ago the Wright Brothers successfully conducted the first powered flight on Earth. Today, NASA reported its solar-powered Ingenuity helicopter, part of its Mars Perseverance rover that arrived on the planet in February, successfully lifted off from the red planet at 3:34 a.m. EST, marking it, âthe first aircraft in history to make a powered, controlled flight on another planet,â the agency said in a news release.
NASA said Ingenuity climbed to roughly 10 feet (3 meters) above the surface and entered a stable hover for about 30 seconds. The total flight lasted a total of 39.1 seconds. The Wright Brothers first flight in 1903 with Orville at the controls lasted just 12 seconds. âThe 19.3-inch-tall (49-centimeter-tall) Ingenuity Mars Helicopter contains no
Published: April 20, 2021 12:52 PM IST
NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, which achieved controlled flight on Mars runs on the same Qualcomm chip as the Samsung Galaxy S5 and other Android smartphones. Also Read - NASA Perseverance Mars rover uses 1998 iMac processor with just one upgrade
The Ingenuity helicopter runs the Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 SoC, which was seen on smartphones in 2014 such as the Galaxy S5 and OnePlus One, according to a
“Of course, instead of running Android, NASA opted for a more traditional Linux operating system. This processor and operating system handle things like the helicopter’s visual navigation system and the flight control systems,” the report read. Also Read - Watch in 360-degree: NASA Perseverance rover touchdown from inside Mission Control
April 19th, 2021 in Podcast. Closed NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter captured this image of its shadow as it hovered over the Martian surface on April 19, 2021, during the first instance of powered, controlled flight on another planet. It used its navigation camera, which autonomously tracks the ground during flight. (Photo courtesy of NASA/JPL-
Caltech)
Ingenuity has lifted off the Martian surface and launched a new era of planetary exploration
A small helicopter opened a new chapter of space exploration this morning when it lifted off the surface of Mars, marking humankind’s first powered flight on another planet. The 19-inch-tall chopper called Ingenuity kicked up a little rusty red dust as it lifted about 10 feet off the ground, hovered in place, turned slightly, and slowly touched back down. The flight lasted only about 40 seconds, but it represents one of history’s most audacious engineering feats.
âââ 09:19 Sun, 18 Apr 2021 PHOTO: EYEWITNESS NEWS
NASA s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter could make its first flight over the Red Planet as soon as Monday, the US space agency reported, following a delay of more than a week due to a possible technical issue.
The mini helicopterâs trip will mark the first-ever powered, controlled flight on another planet, and will help NASA reap invaluable data about the conditions on Mars. NASA is targeting no earlier than Monday 19 April, for the first flight of its Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, the space agency reported Saturday.
Data will return to Earth a few hours following the autonomous flight, which would take off at approximately 3:30 am (0730 GMT), NASA said.
Highlights
This is the first-ever controlled flight on another planet.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration s Wright Brothers moment came on Monday (April 19, 2021) when it successfully performed the first-ever controlled flight on Mars. The history was made with the help of the Ingenuity Mars helicopter which took off and hovered on Jazero Crater and landed back successfully on the Martian land.
This is the first time when a controlled flight was attempted on a foreign planet.
The successful first flight of Ingenuity on Mars paves the way to innumerable possibilities of powered flight on other planets. Ingenuity is the latest in a long and storied tradition of NASA projects achieving a space exploration goal once thought impossible, said acting NASA Administrator Steve Jurczyk.