To power the to-be historic flight, Qualcomm used a technology similar to that of a drone’s or iRobot vacuum. That technology, called the Qualcomm Flight Platform, is about the size of a credit card.
A Southern California affair, Perseverance was built at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena while Ingenuity’s technology was built in Sorrento Valley. The codes that make the rover helicopter’s flight possible will be sent from JPL to the Qualcomm-created platform ahead of time.
The Mars Perseverance Rover successfully landed on the red planet but for Qualcomm’s robotics team, the mission is just beginning.