The first pictures of its historic flight to Mars this morning!

Rotate, take, climb, hover, descend, descend, touch down and rotate down. » Shameless self-promotion for Ballistic Products and a great bargain on a neat little knife for you. And then the thumb. Finally applause. An explosion of joy when the data finally appears on the screens of the control center Jet Propulsion Laboratory Of (JPL) NASA. This time it is. Ingenuity made its first flight. This Monday, April 19, 2021 will therefore, for the first time, be remembered as the date on which the motorized and controlled engine flew over a planet other than our Earth. Tuesday.

The Mars helicopter was pointed out by the NASA engineer in charge of reporting Ingenuity Successfully completed all stages of its flight: starting, departing, boarding, flight, descent, landing and finally, stopping the blades. “We dreamed of a kind of moment”Wright brothers” – Two pioneers of American aviation who flew the first aircraft in 1903 – Here we are ”, Commented Mimi Ang, head of the ingenuity program on NASA TV.

A historic flight

The first film to release this record was Ingenuity Orbiting Mars. Picture taken by helicopter while flying over the surface of Mars. Then, these are immortal images Rover diligence It turned out to be NASA’s engineers. A helicopter is designed and built on Earth and takes off from the ground of the Red Planet.

Keep in mind that the Mars helicopter is definitely not a “pilot”. It actually executes a sequence of commands that have already been sent. It’s hers Software Plane to manage the queue. Today’s flight was scheduled to last about 40 seconds, one of which was an departure, a U-turn towards the rover Diligence And then a landing.

More information is expected in the coming hours. Enthusiasts are already impatiently waiting for the next flight, no doubt it will show us what it is The red planet.

Ingenuity may have made its first flight into the sky of Mars. The first will return from NASA this afternoon

NASA engineers announced this this weekend. The helicopter that was taken to Mars by the Perseverance rover is ready to take off. From 12:15 pm Paris time, in the company of the team in charge of operations, discover that ingenuity has made history as the first engine to reach a motorized and controlled aircraft on another planet.

Article Natalie Mayor Released on 04/19/2021

After a technical failure during the last test of its rotor, IngenuityThe NASA helicopter, which was taken to Mars by a diligent rover, waited patiently until its first flight finally arrived. A historic moment. It has to happen today. This Monday, April 19, 2021. Truth be told it should already be in progress. But to find out how it happened, we will have to wait a little longer.

This weekend, tests of the software update introduced by NASA are over. Engineers from the US space agency responsible for the ingenious operation are now inviting you to wait with them to retrieve its first data. Historic flight. They offer you This is on TV, Directly from the operational center Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) KST from 12:15 p.m.

Ingenuity “live”

The reason for that Diligence The data will be sent back to Earth. Among the rover’s roles, in fact: providing operational support during flight, taking photos, collecting environmental data and hosting the base station, which allows it to communicate with ingenious mission controllers.

When Live broadcast, You can ask your questions Social Websites Via the hashtag #MarsHelicopter.

But for the full details of the flight – if it had happened – we would have to wait until 8pm tonight, still Paris time.

March: Ignorance does not take many days

During the last test of the Ingenuity rotor, which was supposed to rotate the blades at 2,400 rpm, an anomaly arose, forcing NASA to postpone the flight.

Article Xavier Demiersman Posted on 04/13/2021

After the investigation to find out the disappointment experienced during the rotation-test of the sharp knives on April 9, 49 (see details in the article below)^e NASA has established that Mars Performance Day (initially scheduled for April 11 in view of the aircraft) requires an update of flight control software. The space agency says that is a possible “small” change.

“While creating a new software change is straightforward, the process of checking and finishing the upload for ingenuity can take some time.” Report to JPL. It’s just a story of days, even weeks (s). Patience.

Meanwhile, all the main signs of a drone-helicopter carrying the first controlled flight in history to another planet are “stable” at this point. The investigation continues.

“Such a technical demonstration is not surprising in the face of the challenges of having to work in real time.” NASA explains.

March: Why the ingenious flight was postponed?

Article Remy Decord Released April 12, 2021

Originally scheduled for this weekend, The Ingenuity Demonstration Plane Postponed to April 14th. NASA delayed the flight, which can be described as historic, due to an anomaly during the last test, which was able to see the helicopter’s blades spin at 2,400 revolutions per minute. As NASA clarified in its press release during this large orbital test Speed, Ended earlier than expected due to anomaly when switching from post-flight mode to aircraft modeComputer On board. The ingenuity has gone into security mode. A security procedure, “he said. In safe mode Common to most space systems to avoid other breakdowns or malfunctions caused by the domino effect.

Through diligence, the helicopter hijacked all of its telemetry, allowing land controllers to accurately understand what happened.

High altitude and long flights

During this first flight, Ingenuity It should rise three small meters above its departure zone and remain at that altitude for about 40 seconds before touching the bottom. If this first flight goes right, the drone-helicopter will be able to operate four more flights in early May. In planes two and three, he must be more ambitious, and must climb up to five meters and move about 50 meters down from his position, i.e. avoid perseverance to avoid any danger. Accidental conflict.

With the last two attempts, NASA has even planned more ambitious, adventure flights, but without clearly stating the objectives in terms of travel time and flight ceiling. Note that ingenuity cannot be controlled remotely, due to the several minutes of contact time between the two planets. The program for various aircraft is installed on the helicopter’s board system, but NASA can update them if needed and at any time.

These additional planes are conditioned on the proper operation of the solar panel and the ingenious indoor heating, which ensures on-board electronics cooling resistance, which can drop as low as -90 degrees Celsius at night. By far, the lowest temperature ever measured by diligence is -83 degrees Celsius.