Washington, March 23rd
First of all, the Perseverance rover on Mars is ready to deploy a mini-helicopter called Ingenuity that will fly and explore the Red Planet.
After dropping the debris shield, permanence will spend the next two or three days after the Ingenuity flight zone on Mars.
“The debris shield goes away, and this is our first look at the helicopter. It’s pushed on all sides, folded up and locked in place, so there’s a little rear origami to do before you can. First though, I’ll be off to the “helipad,” named a day or two from here, “the rover team said in a tweet Monday.
NASA expects the first test run of the four-pound, four-blade rotorcraft to arrive “no earlier than the first week of April”.
The crews working at NASA’s Ingenuity and Perseverance Mars 2020 rover have selected the flight area where the helicopter will attempt its first controlled flight, on another planet.
Perseverance – with innovation tied to its belly – landed in Jezero Crater on February 18th.
Innovation is a technology demonstration with a limited test flight time of up to 31 days (30 Mars days, or sols).
“The rover uses the helicopter and provides environmental monitoring and image support. It also hosts the Ingenuity base station, enabling communication with mission controllers on Earth,” according to NASA.
NASA’s Mars Ingenuity Helicopter is the first aircraft that sent humanity to another planet to try to fly with power, under control.
If his experimental flight test program is successful, the return of the data could be of benefit to future research on the Red Planet – including those by astronauts – by sending the size of the air added to it, which is not available today. IANS