Indian space and research organisation, Space agency

Washington, Feb 21 Even after 19 Red Planet flights under its belt in a year, NASA's Mars helicopter Ingenuity is not done yet.The little chopper landed with NASA's Perseverance rover on the floor of Jezero Crater one year ago today (February 18).Weighing just 1.8 kg, Ingenuity, in a matter of five pioneering flights last spring, proved that aerial exploration is possible on Mars despite the planet's thin atmosphere, Space.com reported.It became the first rotorcraft ever to make powered flight beyond Earth."We're still going very strong," Jaakko Karras, Ingenuity deputy operations lead at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, told Space.com."There isn't a single item that we're getting nervous about," he added. "Everything is holding up very, very well."Ingenuity's $85 million mission was supposed to be done after flight number five. But the solar-powered chopper had performed so well and remained so healthy that NASA granted a mission extension, the report said.The rotorcraft has been pushing the limits of Red Planet flight during this new phase. For example, on sortie number 11, which it made on August 4, the helicopter covered 383 metres of ground, got 12 m above the red dirt and reached a maximum speed of about 19 kph.It is also doing scouting work for Perseverance on these longer, more ambitious jaunts, helping the rover team plan routes and scope out potential science targets.However, it was not always perfectly smooth sailing for Ingenuity. For example, the helicopter failed to transition to flight mode as planned in the leadup to its first-ever sortie, pushing that historic liftoff back by about a week, the report said.Ingenuity's first attempt at flight number 14 was aborted after the chopper detected anomalies in two of its six flight-control servo motors. And a big Mars dust storm delayed flight 19 more than a month.But, Ingenuity has powered through all of them to date, suggesting that the future is very bright for aerial exploration on Mars, the report said.Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor

Indian Space And Research OrganisationFOLLOW

Indian space and research organisation, Latest News

In a big development, NASA has successfully launched the third in a series of next-generation weather satellites for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). ...

Washington, March 1 NASA on Tuesday awarded three additional missions to the International Space Station (ISS) to Elon ... ...

New York, Feb 27 Space agency NASA has announced that James Webb continued on its path to becoming ... ...

An astronaut steps into a body scanner and, hours later, walks on Mars in a custom-made spacesuit, breathing oxygen that was extracted from Mars' carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere. On Venus, an inflatable bird-like drone swoops through the sky, studying ...

Washington, Feb 25 Even as Russia's military invasion of Ukraine has sparked criticism and invoked several sanctions, it ... ...

Washington, Feb 22 After replacing faulty control mechanisms, all core stage rocket engines on NASA's moon rocket have ... ...

The Solar Orbiter spacecraft, a joint project of the American National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the European Space Agency (ESA) has captured the largest solar prominence eruption ever observed in a single image together with th ...

Washington, Feb 21 Even after 19 Red Planet flights under its belt in a year, NASA's Mars helicopter ... ...