For decades, the exploration of alien worlds has been restricted by the available technology. We either had to scan the surface from high above in orbit or from very close to the ground, using painfully slow rovers. No more, as the doors to drones, helicopters, and other such machines flying over alien terrain just opened.
Following a week or so of agony caused by a failed attempt to take off, NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter just did that, as it managed to stay airborne for a while and supposedly landed back in its spot in the Jezero Crater. We say supposedly because news of this is so fresh NASA had only this to say in a short tweet.
“Perseverance got us to Mars. With Ingenuity, we soar higher. The #MarsHelicopter made history today by being the first craft to achieve controlled, powered flight on a planet beyond Earth.”
On the mission’s official website, there are a few more bits of info, with NASA saying the machine even got to use its “navigation camera, which autonomously tracks the ground during flight” to take the photo you see attached to this piece.
At the time of writing, there is no video yet of the flight (the Perseverance rover is positioned in such a way as to capture the moment), but we’ve attached a video below that includes the live feed from mission control during the flight.
Created by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Ingenuity was tasked with finding out if “powered, controlled flight on another planet” can be achieved. Although there’s no reason for this not to happen in theory, the particularities of Mars in terms of atmosphere and gravity made things a bit uncertain.
Now that this is out of the way, Earth-based space agencies can consider how best to use helicopters to study alien worlds. When the first batch of such explorers are sent out there, things should go a lot faster in terms of ground covered, and new points of interest for rovers to explore could be uncovered much more quickly.
We’ll update this story as soon as more info on the flight becomes available.
Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies. Full profile
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