Having the option of using robotic fliers could greatly expand a space agency’s ability to study the Martian landscape in more detail, just as the transition from stationary landers to rovers did in earlier decades.Ī concept model of NASA’s orbiting sample container, which will hold the tubes of Martian rock and soil samples to be returned to Earth. If the tests succeed, it could pave the way for future, larger Marscopters. About two months after landing, Perseverance will drop off the helicopter from its belly, and Ingenuity will attempt a series of about five test flights of increasing duration. NASA’s engineers used a series of materials and computer technology advancements to overcome a number of these challenges. No terrestrial helicopter has ever flown that high, and that’s more than twice the altitude that jetliners typically fly at. But taking off from the surface of Mars is the equivalent of flying through air as thin as what would be found at an altitude of 100,000 feet on Earth. The lesser gravity - one-third of what you feel here - helps with getting airborne. At the surface of Mars, the atmosphere is just 1/100th as dense as Earth’s. There is not much air there to push against to generate lift. NASA’s new rover is carrying a four-pound helicopter called Ingenuity that will attempt something that has never been done before: the first controlled flight on another world in our solar system.įlying on Mars is not a trivial endeavor. “Touchdown confirmed,” said Swati Mohan, the engineer who provided commentary on the descent.Īn animation depicting the test flight of NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter on Mars. cheers erupted in the control room with the announcement that Perseverance was intact on the surface. In the final step, the rover was lowered at the end of a cable beneath a rocket-powered jetpack until it touched the surface.Īt 3:55 p.m. There were periodic announcements of the spacecraft’s progress through the atmosphere: the deceleration and heating as it sliced through the thin Martian air, the deployment of a huge parachute even as it was still supersonic in speed, the shedding of the rover’s heat shield so that its cameras could navigate to its destination and the firing of rocket engines to further slow its descent. The atmosphere of NASA’s operations center - more sparsely filled than previous Mars landings because of precautions required by the coronavirus pandemic - was pensively quiet, broken by applause as specific events unfolded without problem. The only uncertainty was whether it was safe there in one piece, or crashed into many pieces, another human-made crater on the surface of Mars. That means that when the message announcing the start of the landing sequence reached Earth, the rover had already been on Mars for four minutes. Radio signals, traveling at the speed of light, take more than 11 minutes to travel from there to here. Mars is currently 126 million miles from Earth. At Mars, the fate of the rover was already determined. NASA TVĪll that anyone on Earth could do was watch and hope that Perseverance performed as designed. The second of two images sent by Perseverance from Mars’s surface.
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