Ingenuity helicopter nears 50th flight on Mars

Watching mud kicked up from the martian floor by the rotors of a human-made helicopter by no means will get outdated. Neither does point-of-view footage of stated helicopter touchdown safely again on the bottom — which has now occurred 48 straight instances.

The Perseverance rover deployed the Ingenuity helicopter onto the floor of Mars means again on April 3, 2021. The proof-of-concept helicopter mission was initially slated to check itself for simply 30 days, embarking on a whopping 5 flights that will attain altitudes of some 10 to 16 toes (3 to five meters) and last as long as 90 seconds every.

Right here we’re, some 720 days later, and Ingenuity has accomplished its forty eighth flight, reaching an altitude of 39 toes (12 m), touring some 1,306 toes (398 m), and staying aloft for 149.9 seconds, based on Ingenuity’s flight log.

The anatomy of a Mars helicopter

With a wingspan (or blade span) of slightly below 4 toes (1.2 m) and a mass of 1.8 kilograms — which interprets to 4 kilos on Earth however simply 1.5 kilos on Mars — Ingenuity is a fairly tiny extraterrestrial explorer. Particularly in comparison with NASA’s newest car-sized Mars rover, Perseverance, which stowed Ingenuity inside its stomach at some stage in their journey to the floor of Mars.

However what it lacks in measurement, Ingenuity makes up for in engineering.

Mars’ environment is extraordinarily skinny, simply 1 p.c the density of Earth’s. So any helicopter that hopes to fly on Mars not solely has to maintain its weight down, but additionally have rotors able to offering enough raise. That’s why Ingenuity’s rotors spin at a panoramic 2,400 revolutions per minute (rpm), which is a few 5 to 6 instances as quick because the blades of a mean helicopter on Earth.