With Goals Met, NASA to Push Envelope With Ingenuity Mars Helicopter

[turbinetree]

The Red Planet rotorcraft will extend its range, speed, and flight duration on Flight Four.

Now that NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter has accomplished the goal of achieving powered, controlled flight of an aircraft on the Red Planet, and with data from its most recent flight test, on April 25, the technology demonstration project has met or surpassed all of its technical objectives. The Ingenuity team now will push its performance envelope on Mars.

The fourth Ingenuity flight from “Wright Brothers Field,” the name for the Martian airfield on which the flight took place, is scheduled to take off Thursday, April 29, at 10:12 a.m. EDT (7:12 a.m. PDT, 12:30 p.m. local Mars time), with the first data expected back at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California at 1:21 p.m. EDT (10:21 a.m. PDT).

“From millions of miles away, Ingenuity checked all the technical boxes we had at NASA about the possibility of powered, controlled flight at the Red Planet,” said Lori Glaze, director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division. “Future Mars exploration missions can now confidently consider the added capability an aerial exploration may bring to a science mission.

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Closer View of Perseverance From Ingenuity’s Perspective


https://mars.nasa.gov/news/8933/with-goals-met-nasa-to-push-envelope-with-ingenuity-mars-helicopter/

[soothsayer]

1. We'll up the time airborne to 117 seconds, increase max airspeed to 3.5 m/sec (8 mph), & more than d

Link to tweet

?s=21


NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover
@NASAPersevere
In three flights, the #MarsHelicopter nailed its tech demo goals. Flight 4 pushes it even farther and faster. Reframing my shot and getting ready for tomorrow’s flight.

NASA JPL
@NASAJPL
Flight No. 4 is targeted for April 29. 🗓️
#MarsHelicopter has met or surpassed all its tech demo goals. Now, we'll push performance. We'll up the time airborne to 117 seconds, increase max airspeed to 3.5 m/sec (8 mph), & more than double the total range. http://go.nasa.gov/32UGOus

[turbinetree]

3. Wado................thank you

[Harker]

2. Time for a victory roll! n/t

[turbinetree]

4. Agreed .......................

[bluestarone]

5. Love this stuff. One question i've always had is

How does NASA keep everything we put on the surface, from blowing around? I'm sure they get pretty high winds there. You would think that helicopter would be blown around quite a bit.

[JHB]

6. Because the atmosphere is barely there compared to Earth.

Less than 1% of Earth's pressure at sea level. The Martian winds can kick up dust, sometimes a lot of it, but just can't put enough force on bigger things to push them around.

That was one of the big hurdles for the copter, designing it to get enough lift to fly in those conditions.

[bluestarone]

7. Makes sense!

TY

[JHB]

8. Just looked it up: the equivalent pressure on Earth...

...is at an altitude of about 32 miles up.

[bluestarone]

9. interesting stuff!

[lagomorph777]

10. Looking forward to the next pics and videos!!

Been watching all three previous flights.

SO cool.