One year ago today, an aircraft flew on a world beyond Earth.
The Ingenuity Mars helicopter, which landed inside the Jezero Crater with the Perseverance rover, is the history-making vehicle. Ingenuity flew over the red dirt of Wright Brothers Field for the first time over two months later.
With that 39-second sortie, Ingenuity was able to show that aerial exploration is possible on Mars, which has an atmosphere just 1% as dense as that of Earth. That was the main goal of the little helicopter's technology-demonstrating mission, which called for five flights over the course of 30 Martian days. The Earth day is about 24 hours and 40 minutes.
The Ingenuity helicopter is still on Mars a year later.
Ingenuity flew through the initial campaign. The little chopper has 25 flights under its belt and is still going strong a year later.
Jaakko Karras is the chief engineer of Ingenuity, which is based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
We would consider ourselves lucky if we could get just one flight and land safely, and extremely lucky if we could get to the end of that initial 30-sol tech-demo window with five flights under our belts.
The helicopter has been pushed to its limits by the Ingenuity team. On its 25th flight, which took place on April 8, Ingenuity covered 2,310 feet of ground and reached a top speed of 12.3 mph.
The Perseverance team is using Ingenuity's aerial observations to plan the safest, most efficient routes for the rover.
Karras said that the scout role has always been a guiding vision and aspiration for this technology. We thought that we would be a demo.
Ingenuity is a testament to its engineering and creativity, Karras said. The chopper's navigation software was designed to only deal with flat terrain. He said that it is robust and flexible enough to allow Ingenuity to fly over some seriously rugged landscapes.
Karras said that the Ingenuity team has uploaded some software updates over the past year, but they have mostly been used to patch minor problems.
The software updates thus far are only scratching the surface of what we could still do, he said.
Ingenuity is in good health, so it should keep flying, helping Perseverance explore the ancient river delta that once existed within Jezero. The foundation for even greater Martian aerial feats is laid by Ingenuity.
Engineers at JPL are drawing up plans for bigger, more capable successors that could explore Mars on their own. Perseverance is where all communications from the solar-powered Ingenuity must go.
Karras said that the hope is that a future Mars helicopter could fly miles or kilometers at a time, and carry its own science instruments.
Mike Wall is the author of Out There, a book about the search for alien life. You can follow him on social media. Follow us on social media.
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