Ingenuity: first powered flight on another planet
Ingenuity: primer vuelo propulsado en otro planeta
- Date
- 19 de abril de 2021 · confidence high
- Place
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, United States
- Credited to
- NASA / JPL (MiMi Aung and Bob Balaram)
- Field
- Movement
What it is
A 1.8 kg helicopter with counter-rotating rotors that took off in Jezero crater and flew for about 40 seconds in an atmosphere 1 % as dense as Earth's. It made 72 flights in nearly three years.
It carried a fragment of fabric from the Wright brothers' aeroplane. It was retired in January 2024 after damaging a blade on flight 72; only five flights were planned.
What it led to
- helicopters as aerial scouts on Mars (Mars Science Helicopter)
- Dragonfly, NASA's rotorcraft for Titan
- autonomous visual navigation in flight