Miami, Apr 14 (EFE).- The Ingenuity, the small 1.8-kilo helicopter that rose on Mars for the first time on April 19, 2021, completed its 50th flight on the red planet, reported this NASA Friday.
The spacecraft, which was originally intended to make just five demonstration flights, flew about 18 meters above the Martian surface on Thursday, the highest it has climbed to date, and made a journey of more than 322 meters in 146 seconds. .
“The Ingenuity team continues to pursue and learn from the first aircraft flight operations on another world,” Lori Glaze, director of NASA’s Division of Planetary Sciences, said in a statement after the “half-century” mark.
The drone, which landed on the Martian surface on February 18, 2021 attached to the Perseverance rover, has completed a total of 89.2 minutes of flight and covered 11.5 kilometers of the route.
Designed solely as a test helicopter, or more accurately as “a technology demonstration” intended to prove that “controlled and powered flight on another planet was possible,” the Ingenuity “exceeded expectations and became a demonstration of operations”, highlighted the US space agency.
On its maiden flight nearly two years ago, the solar-powered helicopter rose about three meters and hovered in the air for about 30 seconds, before descending for a total of 39.1 seconds.
NASA compared that flight with the feat achieved in 1903 by the Wright brothers, who made the first powered flight. In fact, the Ingenuity has a small piece of cloth from that aircraft under one of its rotors.
Flying on Mars is not easy, since the pressure of the atmosphere on the surface is only 1% of the terrestrial one, for this reason, its two pairs of propellers, placed one on top of the other, have to rotate very fast, at 2,537 revolutions per minute.
Hence the immense success of this 49-centimeter-high drone, whose displacements allow aerial views that may be of possible interest for the exploration of the Perseverance rover and, especially, pave the way for other future helicopters on Mars and other space destinations.
NASA plans a new flight of this helicopter over the “Fall River Pass” region of Jezero crater, on a date yet to be determined.
Ingenuity, which has been known to travel at speeds of up to 14.5 miles per hour (23 km/h), reached Mars after lifting off attached to the stomach of Perseverance on July 30, 2020 from the Mars Air Force Station. Cape Canaveral, in Florida (USA), propelled by an Atlas V rocket from the private consortium United Lauchnh Alliance (ULA).
