Flying on Mars is challenging because its atmosphere is only one percent of that of Earth. In this test flight, the blades of the helicopter rotated up to 2,500 rpm. This speed was five times faster than Earth.
(Photo Credit: NASA)
NASA on Monday shared the first color photos of the surface of Mars. These photos were taken by Ingenuity during its second successful flight through the Martine atmosphere. These historical photographs were taken when the helicopter was at a height of 17 feet from the surface. Rover tire marks can be seen in the picture.
These color photos were captured through Ingenuity’s high resolution camera, which has a 4208 x 3120 pixel sensor. NASA said that these photos show close-up of the tire marks of Percerence Mars Rover and the surface of Mars, Martian terrain from elevation in the air. Ingenuity first made history on 18 April. NASA had called this history-making success a major achievement. The agency said that this is the first time that an aircraft has controlled flight in another world.
Ingenuity remained in the air for 39.1 seconds
The helicopter, named Ingenuity, reached Mars with NASA’s Perversance Rover. Ingenuity flew at exactly 3:34 AM ET and had climbed up to 10 feet in the air. It held steady in the air for 30 seconds before landing back on the surface of Mars and touching it. Giving information about this, NASA said that its flight was a total of 39.1 seconds.
Flying on Mars is challenging because its atmosphere is just one percent at the ground level compared to Earth. This means that in order to fly, the helicopter must be extremely light and its blades must rotate very fast to take flight. In this test flight the blade rotated up to 2,500 rpm, enabling it to fly 10 feet above the ground.
Helicopter flies five times faster than Earth
This speed was five times faster than the Earth. Smaller helicopter blades rotate up to 500 times a minute in flight, while larger aircraft such as twin-rotated coopers like the Chinook can rotate their blades only 225 times a minute. On 22 April, the helicopter made its second successful flight, which was larger than the first. This time the helicopter flew up to 16 feet in the air. During this time, he also covered a distance of seven feet in the air and took a colorful picture of the surface of Mars.
Third flight on sunday
Ingenuity successfully completed its third flight on Mars on Sunday. This time, compared to the first two flights, Ingenuity flew more distances and at a much faster speed. Ingenuity reached a high speed of 6.6 feet per second in the third flight.
Ingenuity covered 64 feet in its third flight and caught a speed of 6.6 feet per second (two meters per second) or four miles per hour. Dave Lavry, the program executive of the Ingenuity Project, said, “Today’s flight was as we had planned and it was nothing short of amazing.”
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