The NASA Ingenuity mini-helicopter made its first-ever flight to Mars. - A great space travel event, says Pål Brekke.
118 years after the first successful motorized flight on our own planet. Now it has become a fact that a man-made spacecraft flew over another planet for the first time.
The plan is that a helicopter can be used to reconnoiter areas for a land ship that needs information on where to go to find traces of water and possible prehistoric life. In the future, it can be used to explore areas that are too difficult for humans and rovers to access.
Cries of euphoria
The first confirmations that Ingenuity had flown successfully reached the NASA control room around 12.50 a.m. Norwegian time. After all the data that showed that the flight was successful, there was complete joy.
- We can now say that humans flew a rotor-powered spacecraft on another planet. Each world only has one first flight, says Ingenuity project manager MiMi Aung.
Household debt in Norway. How much do we borrow?
- Big event
- It is clear that this is a great space travel event. This paves the way for the day people come to the surface and use the helicopter to explore larger areas, explains Pål Brekke, head of department at the Norwegian Space Center.
- The team must feel the success today. For many years they have been developing and testing this helicopter, which will fly in completely unusual conditions. And now they do it, she says.
The flight started around 09:30 on Monday morning, after some technical problems and delays.
The signals arrive from Mars to Earth after about 15 minutes. In contrast, the test flight data and images had to be sent from the rover by other space probes orbiting Mars before they could be sent to Earth.
Because you had to wait for one of these space probes to pass the rover, and be able to transmit signals to Earth for a full four hours before the first images could be seen.
Since it takes a long time to transmit signals between Earth and Mars, a short flight was programmed. He was instructed to take off and climb vertically for about six seconds. The next commands are to keep altitude and turn around before landing again.
-Norwegian "pilot"
The helicopter arrived on Mars with the Perseverance rover in February. It is controlled remotely from the ground by, among others, the Norwegian operator Håvard Fjær Grip at NASA.
Since the distance between the two planets means it takes a few minutes for a signal to arrive, it cannot control the helicopter in real time.
- The helicopter must think for itself - it must independently make a number of decisions, analyzing the terrain over which it is to fly. Grip can't control it with a joystick, but only program it to do what it should do on its own, explains Brekke.
NASA announces a press conference on the matter on Monday at 20 p.m. Norwegian time.
