![]() Nasa said that issue has since been resolved. ![]() The planned flight was delayed for a week by a technical glitch during a test spin of the aircraft’s rotors on 9 April. The small, lightweight aircraft already passed an early crucial test by demonstrating it could withstand nighttime temperatures dropping as low as -90C, using solar power alone to recharge and keep internal components properly heated. The design was successfully tested in vacuum chambers built at JPL to simulate Martian conditions, but it remains to be seen whether Ingenuity will fly on the red planet. Engineers equipped Ingenuity with rotor blades that are four feet long and spin more rapidly than would be needed on Earth for an aircraft of its size. While Mars possesses much less gravity than Earth, its atmosphere is just 1% as dense, presenting a special challenge for flight. A new European concept called the Small Mars System (SMS), described in a paper in the journal Ars Astronautica, would use a helicopter drone, among other items, to explore the surface. Nasa hopes Ingenuity – a technology demonstration separate from Perseverance’s primary mission to search for traces of ancient microorganisms – paves the way for aerial surveillance of Mars and other destinations in the solar system, such as Venus or Saturn’s moon Titan. An unexpectedly strong wind gust is one potential peril that could spoil the flight. “It doesn’t have a self-righting system, so if we do have a bad landing, that will be the end of the mission,” Aung said. ![]() Prospects for future flights rest largely on a safe, four-point touchdown the first time. If the test succeeds, Ingenuity will undertake several additional, lengthier flights in the weeks ahead, though it will need to rest four to five days in between each to recharge its batteries. Nasa hopes to receive images and video of the flight from cameras mounted on the helicopter and on the Perseverance rover, which will be parked 76 metres away.
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