Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Space
  3. News

NASA’s Mars helicopter touches down on the Martian surface

By
Add as a preferred source on Google

NASA's Ingenuity helicopter can be seen here with all four of its legs deployed before dropping from the belly of the Perseverance rover on March 30, 2021, the 39th Martian day, or sol, of the mission.
NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter can be seen here with all four of its legs deployed before dropping from the belly of the Perseverance rover on March 30, 2021, the 39th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. NASA/JPL-Caltech

The highly-anticipated first flight of the Mars helicopter Ingenuity is fast approaching, and NASA personnel are busy getting the helicopter ready. The tiny Ingenuity helicopter has been tucked beneath the belly of the Perseverance rover up until now, but has recently been deployed by the rover and is now sitting on the Martian surface. The current aim is for Ingenuity to take its first flight next week on Sunday, April 11.

Recommended Videos

In a post from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Twitter account, engineers confirmed that Ingenuity has made its final 4-inch drop from the rover and has touched down safely on the surface of the planet. The concern now is keeping the helicopter warm enough over the frigid Mars nights so it can be ready for its test flight.

#MarsHelicopter touchdown confirmed! Its 293 million mile (471 million km) journey aboard @NASAPersevere ended with the final drop of 4 inches (10 cm) from the rover's belly to the surface of Mars today. Next milestone? Survive the night. https://t.co/TNCdXWcKWE pic.twitter.com/XaBiSNebua

— NASA JPL (@NASAJPL) April 4, 2021

NASA gave more details about how Ingenuity will keep itself warm in a blog post about the helicopter published on Friday, March 2: “Until now it has been connected to the Perseverance rover, which allowed Ingenuity to charge its battery as well as use a thermostat-controlled heater powered by the rover. This heater keeps the interior at about 45 degrees Fahrenheit through the bitter cold of the Martian night, where temperatures can drop to as low as -130F. That comfortably protects key components such as the battery and some of the sensitive electronics from harm at very cold temperatures.”

To prepare for separation from the rover, the helicopter’s batteries were charged to 100%. That way, the helicopter can run its heater to keep itself warm. With the helicopter now on the surface, the rover moves away to allow the rays of the sun to strike Ingenuity’s solar panels to keep its battery topped up and to keep it toasty.

The NASA blog gave more details about what to expect over the next few days: “The Ingenuity team will be anxiously waiting to hear from the helicopter the next day. Did it make it through the night? Is the solar panel working as expected? The team will check the temperatures and the battery recharge performance over the next couple of days. If it all looks good, then it’s onto the next steps: Unlocking the rotor blades, and testing out all the motors and sensors.”

Georgina Torbet
Georgina Torbet
Former Space Writer
Georgina has been the space writer at Digital Trends space writer for six years, covering human space exploration, planetary…
Topics
Space is becoming Bezos and Musk’s next data center site, and we have every reason to worry
The AI boom is coming for the night sky
How Vast's space station will look in orbit.

AI data centers already consume vast amounts of electricity and water on Earth, so Silicon Valley has begun looking somewhere considerably more spacious... literally.

Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, along with several other companies, have proposed enormous constellations of satellites designed to operate as orbital data centers. However, environmental groups and former space officials are now warning that putting them into orbit at the proposed scale could have severe consequences for Earth's atmosphere and the night sky.

Read more
The first possible exomoon is here, and it makes our Moon look hilariously tiny
Scientists may have found the first exomoon, except this one is the size of Jupiter
This artist’s concept depicts a potential volcanic moon between the exoplanet WASP-49 b, left, and its parent star. New evidence indicating that a massive sodium cloud observed near WASP-49 b is produced by neither the planet nor the star has prompted researchers to ask if its origin could be an exomoon.

We have already discovered more than 6,000 planets outside of our immediate neighborhood. Yet, finding a moon orbiting one of those distant worlds has proved considerably harder. Astronomers may finally have something close to the real deal, but this particular object stretches the word “moon” almost beyond recognition.

Using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile, researchers detected strong evidence for a moon-like object in the CD-35 2722 system. Further observations are still necessary to confirm the discovery, but it could become the first confidently detected natural satellite outside our solar system. There is still one tiny complication though. This moon is apparently massive.

Read more
China’s answer to SpaceX’s reusable rockets literally catches boosters in a net
SpaceX catches boosters on legs. China just used a net.
Ammunition, Missile, Weapon

SpaceX's playbook for recovering a rocket booster generally involves legs, a precisely controlled vertical landing, and either a concrete pad or a drone ship. 

China just managed to pull off something similar, but in a slightly different way, and on July 10, it tested the method as well.

Read more