NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Succeeds in Historic First Flight

Today, NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter became the first aircraft in history to make a powered, controlled flight on another planet. «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. « We don’t know exactly where Ingenuity will lead us, but today’s results indicate the sky – at least on Mars – may not be the limit». Altimeter data indicate Ingenuity climbed to its prescribed maximum altitude of 10 feet and maintained a stable hover for 30 seconds.

Ingenuity’s initial flight demonstration was autonomous – piloted by onboard guidance, navigation, and control systems running algorithms developed by the team at JPL. Because data must be sent to and returned from the Red Planet over hundreds of millions of miles using orbiting satellites and NASA’s Deep Space Network, Ingenuity cannot be flown with a joystick, and its flight was not observable from Earth in real time. «Now, 117 years after the Wright brothers succeeded in making the first flight on our planet, NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter has succeeded in performing this amazing feat on another world,» Zurbuchen said. « As an homage to the two innovative bicycle makers from Dayton, this first of many airfields on other worlds will now be known as Wright Brothers Field, in recognition of the ingenuity and innovation that continue to propel exploration».

Credit NASA

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