An ingenious helicopter on Mars

Small helicopter NASA The ingenuity arrived in February on
Mars Tied under the rover
DeterminationNASA announced that it has just been separated from it, and is therefore now on the surface of the red planet. This lightweight helicopter, which looks like a large drone, arrived folded and strapped under the persistent rover, which landed on Mars on February 18th, and stayed there until the rover arrived where the theft was supposed to take place.

“Its 293 million-mile (471 million km) flight ended with a small jump of 4 inches (10 cm) from the belly of the probe to the surface of Mars. The next test: Survival at night,” the responsible NASA laboratory tweeted. A picture accompanying the tweet showed she was stalking away from the helicopter. It should clear its eyesight completely in less than 25 hours, because the helicopter would need the sun to power the solar panels and thus be able to survive by heating itself during the cold Mars nights.

# helicopter Landing confirmation! It has a journey of 293 million miles (471 million km) on board Embed a Tweet It ended with the recent descent of 4 inches (10 cm) from the belly of the probe to the surface of Mars today. The next teacher? Survive the night. https://t.co/TNCdXWcKWE pic.twitter.com/XaBiSNebua

– NASA JPL (@ NASAJPL) April 4, 2021

Still a few days before the first flight

Innovation has fueled rover energy so far, but now it will have to fend for itself. “There is a small coolant that makes it possible to maintain a temperature of around 7 degrees Celsius inside the helicopter, while nighttime temperatures on Mars can drop to -90 degrees,” explained Bob Ballaram, chief engineer of the Mars Helicopter project. .

“This helps protect the main equipment of the device,” he added. Over the next two days, the ground crew will verify that the solar panels are working as intended, before beginning to test motors and sensors before the first flight, which is not expected to take place until April 11.