A few days after a small helicopter with a smartphone brain attempted the first motorized flight in another world in the rough crater of Mars. NASA hopes that a giant robotic propeller called Ingenuity will show that power flying in extremely thin Martian air is possible and help us open a new era of planetary exploration where drones play a vital role.
Creativity reached Mars like a stowaway folded underneath NASA’s enduring rover. 293 million miles from Earth after 7 months of travel, landing on the Red Planet in February. For the first flight, the $85 million 4-pound vehicle will fly about 10 feet above the roof and return to the surface without being higher than the edge of the basketball hoop. The entire itinerary must be completed within 90 seconds.
A short voyage (one of five planned one-month trips expected to start around April 11) is a short jump by the metric of interplanetary travel. But an agency official said exploring Mars would be a big leap forward. They said that in the future, unmanned drones like Ingenuity could fly into the sky to explore gorges, ice caps and other terrain that the rover would not have access to. When human explorers land on Mars, drones can act as reconnaissance and aerial sensors.
“We hope that creativity will allow us to expand and open air mobility on Mars,” said Bob Ballaram, senior project engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab in Southern California.
Creativity Journey Find Traces of Past Life on the Red Planet, the most recent of this year’s notable Mars moment wave.
“Bacon Ninja. Alcohol expert. Proud explorer. Avid pop culture enthusiasts.”