NASA: helicopter Ingenuity ready for Mars

NASA's Ingenuity helicopter ready for Mars.

The NASA’s helicopter “Ingenuity” is ready to fly for Mars: it’s today that it should take flight.

NASA’s Ingenuity ready for Mars

The NASA’s helicopter Ingenuity will try to reach Mars, in an attempt to explore it.

It is an evolutionary project, which wants to study a new capacity and technology. The helicopter Ingenuity arrived at the crater Jezero on February 18 after an eight-month trip in the rover Perseverance of NASA. It is 50 cm tall and weighs 1.8 kg on earth.

However, on Mars it weighs 0.68 kg due to the lesser gravity.

We’re all spun up! Get up (or stay up) and join the #MarsHelicopter team live in mission control to find out if the first powered flight attempt on another planet was successful.

Mission Control Live
April 19 at 3:15am PDT (6:15am EDT/1015 GMT)https://t.co/SCVeYsIfBh pic.twitter.com/kNExXpFSAd

— NASA JPL (@NASAJPL) April 19, 2021

Within hours of launch, the helicopter will send the first data to earth. Initially the flight date was April 11. However, the engineers decided to postpone to resolve a matter of pre flight controls.

The Perseverance rover will support Ingenuity in its flight, through environmental data collection and image acquisition. It also houses the base station which is very important because it allows communication with the earth. The helicopter consists of two engines moving in the opposite direction. In addition to the minor gravity on Mars, however, Ingenuity must fly in an atmosphere that is 100 times thinner than that of earth.

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