Story at a glance
- Ingenuity landed on Mars in July 2020 and has since taken 15 flights across the Red Planet.
- It took NASA engineers six years to build Ingenuity in order to withstand Mars’ thin atmosphere.
- If Ingenuity is deemed a success, it could help researchers develop vehicles to eventually take humans to Mars.
NASA’s Mars helicopter recently took its 15th flight and has flown more than five times farther than the space agency had hoped.
On Nov. 6, Ingenuity, NASA’s helicopter designed to explore Mars, successfully flew for 128.8 seconds and captured images of the Red Planet that will support research for scientists back on Earth. The space agency tweeted about the helicopter’s milestone on Monday.
Ingenuity landed on Mars in July 2020 aboard the Perseverance rover. It represents the first aircraft sent to another planet through a powered, controlled flight. Researchers hope to demonstrate that rotorcraft flight is possible in the extremely thin atmosphere of Mars.
The four-pound copter has progressively taken longer and longer flights on Mars since it has landed. It’s also not human controlled, taking off, flying and landing with minimal commands from Earth that are sent in advance.
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Ingenuity represents a unique experiment of NASA’s, built over the course of six years. Engineers sought to design Ingenuity with rotor blades that are larger and can spin faster in order to withstand Mars’ atmosphere. It also was built with a programmable thermostat, that will keep the rover warm amid Mars’ freezing temperatures.
According to NASA, temperatures on Mars get as low as negative 130 degrees Fahrenheit and its atmosphere is just about 1 percent of the density of Earth’s atmosphere.
If Ingenuity succeeds, which seems to be the case as it completed its 15th flight over the weekend, NASA says it could enable future advanced robotic flying vehicles that play a role in bringing human missions to Mars.
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