Mars helicopter flight test promises ‘Wright Brothers’ aviation moment for Nasa
- Nasa hopes the whirligig will slowly ascend to an altitude of three metres above the Martian surface, hover in place for 30 seconds, then rotate before landing
- The robot rotorcraft Ingenuity was carried to Mars strapped to Nasa’s Mars rover Perseverance, which touched down on February 18
Nasa hopes to score a 21st-century ‘Wright Brothers’ aviation moment on Monday as it attempts to send a miniature helicopter buzzing over the surface of Mars in what would be the first powered, controlled flight of an aircraft on another planet.
Landmark achievements in science and technology can seem humble by conventional measurements. The Wright Brothers’ first controlled flight in the world of a motor-driven aeroplane, near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, United States in 1903 covered just 120 feet (37 metres) in 12 seconds.
A modest debut is likewise in store for Nasa’s twin-rotor, solar-powered helicopter Ingenuity.
If all goes to plan, the 1.8kg whirligig will slowly ascend straight up to an altitude of three metres above the Martian surface, hover in place for 30 seconds, then rotate before descending to a gentle landing on all four legs.
While the mere metrics may seem less than ambitious, the “air field” for the interplanetary test flight is 173 million miles from Earth, on the floor of a vast Martian basin called Jezero Crater. Success hinges on Ingenuity executing the pre-programmed flight instructions using an autonomous pilot and navigation system.
“The moment our team has been waiting for is almost here,” Burmese American engineer and Ingenuity project manager MiMi Aung said at a recent briefing at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) near Los Angeles.
Nasa itself is likening the experiment to the Wright Brothers’ feat 117 years ago, paying tribute to that modest but monumental first flight by having affixed a tiny swathe of wing fabric from the original Wright plane under Ingenuity’s solar panel.
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