NASA lets kids build Mars helicopter video game
Updated:
Updated:
April 12, 2021 18:22 IST
Children will be using the visual programming language – Scratch, to design their game, and will need a computer with internet access, to start the game development.
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NASA lets kids build Mars helicopter video game.
| Photo Credit: NASA JPL
Children will be using the visual programming language – Scratch, to design their game, and will need a computer with internet access, to start the game development.
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NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter, which is expected to take its first test flight on April 14, will be the first powered flight on another planet. To mark this unique milestone, the space agency has shared a new activity in its Learning Space, that allows children to “code a Mars helicopter video game.”
BBC Science Focus Magazine
Roughly 274,000,000km away, a hitchhiker is about to make extraterrestrial history. NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter is set to take flight on the Red Planet, the first time a flying vehicle has taken to the skies of another planet.
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Ingenuity piggybacked to Mars on the Perseverance rover, which successfully landed in February. After deploying from the rover, it’s now waiting to stretch its long but lightweight wings and take a look around.
If it succeeds, Ingenuity will truly live up to its name. This is ambitious, experimental technology that has to clear a mind-boggling series of obstacles if it’s to rise from the rust-coloured dust of the Jezero Crater. No wonder observers are comparing it to the Wright Brothers’ first flight in 1903.
Mars Helicopter flight delayed to no earlier than April 14
Photo: NASA
and last updated 2021-04-11 14:01:49-04
NASA LANGLEY - It s a historic flight that will be out of this planet, literally.
After some six years of research, simulations and tests NASA will soon conduct the first flight for the Ingenuity Helicopter on Mars. Oh it s exciting, it s very exciting, said Susan Gorton, NASA Project Manager for the Revolutionary Vertical Lift Technology Project.
Based on data from the Ingenuity Mars helicopter that arrived late Friday night, NASA has chosen to reschedule the Ingenuity Mars Helicopterâs first experimental flight to no earlier than April 14.
What s Up in the Sky: A historic mission on the Red Planet
Peter Burkey
As winter turns to spring, the “Winter Hexagon” and the popular constellations of Orion and Taurus sink lower in the west, leaving an arc of stars formed by Procyon, Pollux, Castor, and Capella. All month the planet Mars is easily visible, appearing between the two constellations.
In the coming months, Mars, along with all its neighbors, will continue to sink lower in the west. If you have trouble picking out which “star” is actually Mars, the planet appears a little brighter than Pollux and a little dimmer than Castor and has a distinct, reddish tone. By the middle of April, the two will be in a straight line with and half way between Betelgeuse and Capella.
Pictures: NASA's mini helicopter Ingenuity touches down on Mars - The helicopter, called Ingenuity has been dropped on the surface of the Red Planet ahead of its historic first flight scheduled for April 11.