Mars Ingenuity helicopter completes its toughest flight yet krdo.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from krdo.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The success of the Ingenuity helicopter on Mars have been a source of pleasant surprise for NASA scientists, who say the robot is ready to perform more critical operations in the overall mission of finding signs of ancient life on Mars.
NASA Mars helicopter Ingenuity became the first aircraft to perform a powered, controlled flight on another planet. The rotorcraft arrived on Mars attached to the belly of the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover. (Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech)
(CN) The Ingenuity helicopter has outperformed the expectations of NASA scientists. Now, the groundbreaking flying robot will transition to an operational role in the mission to find evidence of ancient life on the red planet.
NASA s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Designed By IIT Alumni For Historic Flight indiatimes.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from indiatimes.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Well, we’ve seen better photos of Mars, but this one’s special in that it was taken by NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter. Encouragingly, the craft managed to survive its first frigid night on Mars, bringing us one step closer to its inaugural flight.
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The low-resolution photo was taken on April 3 when Ingenuity was still standing beneath Perseverance rover. And in fact, you can see two of the rover’s wheels in the top corners of the image. This photo is an understated sneak preview of what’s to come; once the 4-pound (1.8-kilogram) rotorcraft takes flight, it will attempt to capture high-resolution color images of its surroundings at heights reaching 10 feet (3 meters).