WASHINGTON - When NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover launches from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida later this summer, an innovative experiment will ride along: the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter. Ingenuity may weigh only about 4 pounds (1.8 kilograms), but it has some outsize ambitions, NASA reports. Continue reading original article.
The Intelligent Aerospace take:
July 16, 2020 -"The Wright Brothers showed that powered flight in Earth's atmosphere was possible, using an experimental aircraft," said Håvard Grip, Ingenuity’s chief pilot at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. "With Ingenuity, we're trying to do the same for Mars."
The Ingenuity helicopter will be the first attempt made by humans to control flight on another planet. Mars has an atmosphere 99% less dense than Earth's, meaning the aircraft needs to be very light with large, fast spinning blades to fly. Ingenuity is scheduled to fly over the Red Planet in February 2021.
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Jamie Whitney, Associate Editor
Intelligent Aerospace
