The first ever extraterrestrial drone-helicopter Ingenuity ("Ingenuity") successfully took off on Mars. NASA's helicopter became the first to make a manned flight to the second planet of the Solar System.
The device managed to rise to a three-meter height and fly several tens of meters.
Ingenuity was delivered to the Red Planet together with the new Perseverance rover in February 2021. This is a small helicopter with a pair of coaxial propellers each 1,2 m long.
Initially, Ingenuity's test flight was scheduled for April 11. However, it was postponed due to problems with the watchdog timer of the control system, which led to the failure of the test for strong rotation of the screws.
On April 19, at 09:31 Kyiv time, the drone made its first flight to Mars. Confirmation in the form of telemetry data and a picture of the shadow of the drone taken by the navigation camera, as well as pictures from the rover, came to Earth after 4 hours.
Thanks to Ingenuity, engineers have confirmed that the drone can indeed fly in the rarefied atmosphere of Mars. It is expected that by the end of the month, the drone will make a few more short flights to study the features of the work of drones in the field of exploration of Mars or Titan.
The results of the flight were broadcast on Youtube.
