Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Smashes Records on Ninth Flight pcmag.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from pcmag.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
On July 30th 2020, the Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter were launched into space. They arrived at Mars on February 18th 2021 to search for evidence of past life and find signs of habitable areas. by Dr David Maddison
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science.
Ingenuity was designed to soar five times over the Martian surface as a technology demonstration. With each flight, NASA engineers were pushing the 4-pound rotorcraft as far and fast as it would go, so they anticipated that it would eventually crash.
But time and again, Ingenuity wasn t felled - not by the strong Martian winds, clouds of copper dust, or other challenges to its mechanics and navigation system. So by the end of April, NASA announced that it would extend the helicopter s life on Mars.
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Ingenuity has now embarked on a new, secondary mission to scout out Martian terrain and test operations that NASA might want to conduct with future space helicopters. That includes exploring rough areas that rovers can t access, observing interesting features of Mars from the air, and snapping photos for elevation maps.
It s scheduled to conduct its most daring flight yet within days.
Ingenuity was expected to crash last month, but the helicopter has exceeded expectations.
A month ago, NASA was preparing to sacrifice its Mars helicopter in the name of science.
Ingenuity was designed to soar five times over the Martian surface as a technology demonstration. With each flight, NASA engineers were pushing the 4-pound rotorcraft as far and fast as it would go, so they anticipated that it would eventually crash.
But time and again, Ingenuity wasn t felled not by the strong Martian winds, clouds of copper dust, or other challenges to its mechanics and navigation system. So by the end of April, NASA announced that it would extend the helicopter s life on Mars.