I find it curious that the first flight on the surface of another planet will be attempted via a helicopter.
As I write this article in February 2021, we are only days away from NASA’s Perseverance rover landing on the surface of Mars. This new Mars rover is on the cusp of plunging into the Martian atmosphere to land on the Red Planet carrying panoramic cameras, subsurface radar, laser micro imager, x-ray spectrometers, and a weather station. But there’s one more innovative piece of equipment that will be dropped from the belly of the Mars rover onto the planet’s surface: Ingenuity, the Mars Helicopter!
Ingenuity is what’s known as a technology demonstrator, and its sole purpose is very narrow in scope. Ingenuity’s goal is an engineering one: to demonstrate rotorcraft flight in the extremely thin Martian atmosphere, which has just around 1% of the density of our atmosphere on Earth and can experience temperatures as cold as -130 degrees Fahrenheit.
Currently, Ingenuity is orbiting Mars safe in the undercarriage of the rover with its health checks complete. If it survives atmospheric entry and landing on Mars, which is scheduled for Feb. 18, Ingenuity will attempt its first flight a month later.
rotorcraftpro.com
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