NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Succeeds in Historic First Flight
AnonTechie writes:
NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter:
The small rotorcraft made history, hovering above Jezero Crater, demonstrating that powered, controlled flight on another planet is possible.
Monday, NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter became the first aircraft in history to make a powered, controlled flight on another planet. The Ingenuity team at the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California confirmed the flight succeeded after receiving data from the helicopter via NASA's Perseverance Mars rover at 6:46 a.m. EDT (3:46 a.m. PDT).
[...] The solar-powered helicopter first became airborne at 3:34 a.m. EDT (12:34 a.m. PDT) - 12:33 Local Mean Solar Time (Mars time) - a time the Ingenuity team determined would have optimal energy and flight conditions. Altimeter data indicate Ingenuity climbed to its prescribed maximum altitude of 10 feet (3 meters) and maintained a stable hover for 30 seconds. It then descended, touching back down on the surface of Mars after logging a total of 39.1 seconds of flight. Additional details on the test are expected in upcoming downlinks.
Ingenuity's initial flight demonstration was autonomous - piloted by onboard guidance, navigation, and control systems running algorithms developed by the team at JPL. Because data must be sent to and returned from the Red Planet over hundreds of millions of miles using orbiting satellites and NASA's Deep Space Network[*], Ingenuity cannot be flown with a joystick, and its flight was not observable from Earth in real time.
[...] Ingenuity's chief pilot, Havard Grip, announced that the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) - the United Nations' civil aviation agency - presented NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration with official ICAO designator IGY, call-sign INGENUITY.
These details will be included officially in the next edition of ICAO's publication Designators for Aircraft Operating Agencies, Aeronautical Authorities and Services. The location of the flight has also been given the ceremonial location designation JZRO for Jezero Crater.
[*] Activity on uplinks and downlinks can be observed on the Deep Space Network.
Great feat of engineering... Kudos to the entire team !
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