April 19, 2021, Monday, the historic day for NASA and the world of technology. Because of the success as the first powered, controlled Helicopter was sent to another planet.
So, the NASA ingenuity Mars Helicopter is now honored as the first aircraft to make a powered, controlled flight on the red planet in history.
At 6:46 a.m. EDT(3:46 a.m. PDT), the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) confirmed the flight’s success. After getting data from the Helicopter through NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover.
This mission was of 30 days to test the flight one or more times. NASA achieved success on April 19, 2021.
When the Helicopter first took flight, it hovered to about 10 feet above the mars surface. It continued hovering in the air for 30 seconds and completed a turn, and then finally landed. The total time of flight was 39.1 seconds. It was momentous to make the powered flight in the tremendously thin atmosphere of Mars or on any planet beyond Earth.
The administrator of NASA said:
“Ingenuity is modern in a long and storied tradition of NASA projects achieving a space exploration goal once thought impossible,
“This X-15 was a guide for the space shuttle. Mars path guide and it’s Sojourner rover did the similar for three generations of Mars rovers. We don’t know exactly where Ingenuity will guide us. But today’s results specify the sky – as a minimum on Mars – may not be the limit.”
This first flight of Ingenuity was self-directed; the onboard guidance, navigation, and control systems running through the algorithms pilot this Helicopter. The JPL team establishes these systems.
The flight shows some air molecules with which the 1.2 meters wide-bladed could interact to get a successful flight.
The manager of the ingenuity mars helicopter at JPL said in the interview:
“We have been discerning for so long about having our Wright brothers flash on Mars, and here it is.”
“We will take a flash to celebrate our achievement. And then take a cue from Orville and Wilbur regarding what to do next. History shows they got back to work – to acquire as much as they could around their novel aircraft – and so will we.”
After the success of this experiment, the team is trying their best to do more best experiments and find something extraordinary about the red planet Mars.