The first powered flight on another planet described as a "Wright Brothers moment".
Author: Mario Escovedo
Updated: 1:50 PM PDT April 9, 2021
SAN DIEGO — San Diego's Qualcomm engineers designed what's described as the "heart and the brains" of the Ingenuity helicopter which will make its first flight on Mars Sunday, April 11.
This is the first powered flight on another planet. The Ingenuity helicopter will have the Qualcomm Flight Platform on board which includes a thumb-sized chipset processor and a credit card-sized flight platform.
News 8 spoke with Chris Pruetting, Qualcomm's Senior Director of Strategic Operations in Qualcomm's Government Technologies Group.
"How do you fly on Mars? The previous rover missions gave us a pretty good understanding of the atmosphere and gravity and a whole host of factors that might come into play on Mars," Pruetting said.