NASA’s experimental helicopter from Mars took off on Monday from the dusty red surface of Mars to complete the first controlled, controlled flight over another planet.
The triumph was compared to the feat of the Wright brothers. In fact, the small 4-pound device, called the Ingenious, carried a piece of wing cloth from the Wright plane that made history in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, in 1903.
“Altimetric data confirm that Ingenuity made its first flight, the first flight of a motor aircraft to another planet,” said the chief pilot of the Havard Greap helicopter, whose voice broke as his comrades exploded in cheers.
California flight controllers confirmed the short flight of ingenuity after receiving data from the Perseverance vehicle, which was guarding more than 65 meters (200 feet) away. Ingenuity traveled to Mars with Perseverance, attached to the bottom of the vehicle on arrival in the ancient delta of the river last February.
The $ 85 million prototype was seen as a high-risk project with high rewards potential.
“Every world has one flight,” Aung said this month. Speaking early Monday morning on the NASA show, he described it as the “ultimate dream.”
Aung and his team had to wait more than three awful hours to find out if the scheduled flight was 287 million kilometers away. In addition to his anxiety, a software error prevented the helicopter from taking off a week before, forcing the engineers to find a solution.
The operations center erupted in applause, cheers and laughter as the success was finally announced. There were several when the first black-and-white image of Ingeniousness appeared on their screens, showing its shadow as it hovered over the surface of Mars. Then came the stunning color images of the helicopter descending back to the surface, made by Perseverance, “the best host who could ever dream of ingenuity,” Aung said, thanking everyone.
NASA had planned a 40-second flight, and although there were few details at first, the aircraft met all its objectives: take-off, take-off, flight, take-off, and landing.