ORLANDO, Fla. — Houston, we have liftoff!
NASA’s tiny helicopter, Ingenuity, made history on Monday with its maiden flight on Mars.
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The flight lasted less than a minute, hovering about 10 feet above the surface of the red planet for 30 seconds and then making a successful landing.
Monday’s test flight marks the first flight of a powered aircraft on another planet.
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Pictures and videos were taken by NASA’s 2020 Perseverance Rover, which launched last July and landed on the Martian surface on Feb. 18.
Like the Wright Brother before, Monday’s flight of the Ingenuity represents a new beginning to planetary exploration.
“This is really a Wright Brothers moment. It’s the start of a whole new kind of planetary exploration. And we’ll build on Ingenuity’s success to see how we can deploy this technology on future Mars missions,” said acting NASA administrator, Steve Jurczyk.
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In honor of the Wright Brothers first successful, powered and controlled 1903 flight, NASA announced that the Martian airfield where the flight took place will now be known as Wright Brothers Field.
A small piece of material from the original Wright Brothers’ flyer was attached to the underside of Ingenuity before it was launched to Mars.
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Monday’s successful flight and landing also breathed new life into Ingenuity.
“Ingenuity is extremely healthy at this point. In fact, she’s even healthier than she was before her first flight. She’s shook off some of her dust that had been covering her solar panel and she’s producing more solar energy than before,” said Ingenuity Chief Engineer JPL, Bob Balaram.
The Ingenuity teams is already planning more flights for the tiny helicopter, each one with increased difficulty and challenges, pushing the limit of this rotorcraft.