NASA’s Mars Helicopter, Ingenuity, has set new records for its longest and fastest flight to date, according to an announcement from the agency on Friday. During its 25th flight, which lasted 161.3 seconds, the rotorcraft covered a distance of 2,310 feet (704 meters) at a speed of 12 MPH (5.5 meters per second) after climbing to an altitude of 33 feet (10 meters). As shown in the video below, Ingenuity’s navigation camera recorded and transmitted footage of the flight.
Really cool stuff. What a testbed for future tech. It’s amazing to have the opportunity to do this and spur the next level of technology. Amazing work from the folks at JPL!
Not bad, considering it’s basically a solar powered RC helicopter. Oh, and it’s 135,800,000 ish miles away on another PLANET, different atmospheric conditions including lots of dust to obscure the solar panels.
And let’s not forget that there is only a tich over 6 millibars of pressure at the surface so this bad boy is taking off at the equivalent of about 60,000 feet!
The most impressive thing to me is that this aircraft is able to do all this (totally different gravity, totally different atmosphere, cutting edge technologies on board) WITHOUT ever having conducted even ONE test flight!!!
Cute. What did that flight just cost taxpayers? What was the ROI to taxpayers? If there is none, it should be privatized and our crushing taxes reduced.
That is a great point - can lessons be learned for flight on earth?
Airbus etc. helicopters are known for high altitude work, such as in the Himalayas, part of that is power I presume. The former Hughes helicopter company had a version better for hothigh, in its original Hughes 500 fuselage shape that is lighter than the competing Bell 206.
Actually, they had some test flights in a reduced pressure chamber and a counter weight to simulate the gravity. But it is still an amazing feat given the very thin atmosphere and the reduced power from sunlight on mars compared with earth.
Next generation they should plan in sufficient mass/power to make one capable of hovering over a solar panel & blowing the dust off. Mobile carpet cleaning, so to speak.