NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter, which is attached to the belly of the Perseverance rover, holds a small relic from the Wright brothers’ first plane, which took flight more than 100 years earlier.
A small amount of material on the wings of the Wright brothers’ plane, known as the Flyer, is now aboard the Ingenuity, which landed on Mars on February 18, NASA said in a statement on Tuesday.
The small piece of fabric was wrapped with tape around a cable located under the solar panel of the helicopter, the agency wrote.
The Wright brothers, NASA said, have used the same type of material – an unbleached muslin called “Pride of the West” – to cover the wings of the glider and aircraft since 1901.
“While ingenuity will attempt the first power-controlled flight to another planet, the first power-controlled flight to Earth took place on December 17, 1903, on wind-blown dunes on Kill Devil Hill, near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Orville and Wilbur Wright walked 120 feet in 12 seconds during the first flight. The Wright brothers made four flights that day, each longer than the previous one “, the NASA statement shows.
“A small amount of the material that covered one of the wings of the Wright brothers’ plane, known as the Flyer, during the first flight is now on board the ingenuity,” the statement added.
The fabric specification, which is the size of a postage stamp, made the 300 million-mile expedition to Mars with the blessing of the Wright brothers’ great-granddaughter and great-grandson, The Associated Press reported, citing a curator at Carillon Historical Park who donated the piece. GODMOTHER.
“Wilbur and Orville Wright would be delighted to learn that a small piece of the 1903 Wright Flyer I, the car that launched it was only a quarter of a mile space, will go up in history again!” Amanda Wright Lane and Stephen Wright said in a statement the park offered to AP.
Another piece of material, in addition to a small piece of wood from the Wright Flyer, was also aboard the July 1969 Apollo 11 mission to the moon, NASA noted.
The ingenuity is on track to try the first motorized and controlled flight of an aircraft on another planet no earlier than April 8, NASA wrote. Before Ingeniousness can attempt its first flight, the helicopter and its crew must meet a series of “daunting milestones,” NASA said.
For now, the helicopter remains attached to the belly of Perseverance, NASA wrote.
On July 30, Perseverance launched into space to Mars from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a mission to look for signs of past life on the red planet. On February 18, the rover successfully landed on Mars, becoming the fifth rover sent by NASA to the red planet.