Photo: NASA
On Monday, Ingenuity spun its blades over a piece of Mars that is now known as the Wright Brothers Field. It was the first time when a human-made helicopter flew on another world. Now, we're witnessing history in the making as the vehicle flew even higher on its second attempt on April 22nd.
NASA’s helicopter rose to 10 feet (3 meters) and flew for 39.1 seconds before landing. Now, Ingenuity broke new ground in terms of speed, hover time, and lateral flight.
For its second flight, the aircraft took off at 5:33 a.m. EDT (2:33 a.m. PDT), as per the initial schedule. It was programmed to fly 16 feet high (5 meters), then tilt and travel seven feet (2 meters) sideways. Then, after hovering in place, the helicopter was meant to point its color camera in various directions before heading back to the starting point. The plan went accordingly and NASA’s Ingenuity logged its successful second flight.
“For the second flight, we tried a slightly different approach to the zoom level on one of the cameras,” said Justin Maki, Perseverance project imaging scientist and Mastcam-Z deputy principal investigator at JPL. “For the first flight, one of the cameras was fully zoomed in on the takeoff and landing zone. For the second flight we zoomed that camera out a bit for a wider field of view to capture more of the flight.”, he added.
Controlling an aircraft on Mars is far more complex than operating it on Earth. The helicopter must fly in an atmosphere that is only about 1 percent as dense as Earth's. The success of each flights provides valuable information about how a rotorcraft can be operated remotely on the Red Planet, helping the next-generation helicopters to further improve their exploration capacity.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory also promises to update us with some color pictures shot from the helicopter.
For its second flight, the aircraft took off at 5:33 a.m. EDT (2:33 a.m. PDT), as per the initial schedule. It was programmed to fly 16 feet high (5 meters), then tilt and travel seven feet (2 meters) sideways. Then, after hovering in place, the helicopter was meant to point its color camera in various directions before heading back to the starting point. The plan went accordingly and NASA’s Ingenuity logged its successful second flight.
“For the second flight, we tried a slightly different approach to the zoom level on one of the cameras,” said Justin Maki, Perseverance project imaging scientist and Mastcam-Z deputy principal investigator at JPL. “For the first flight, one of the cameras was fully zoomed in on the takeoff and landing zone. For the second flight we zoomed that camera out a bit for a wider field of view to capture more of the flight.”, he added.
Controlling an aircraft on Mars is far more complex than operating it on Earth. The helicopter must fly in an atmosphere that is only about 1 percent as dense as Earth's. The success of each flights provides valuable information about how a rotorcraft can be operated remotely on the Red Planet, helping the next-generation helicopters to further improve their exploration capacity.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory also promises to update us with some color pictures shot from the helicopter.
Google News