Ingenuity chopper flies!

[NutmegCT]

The helicopter flies on Mars!

Ingenuity Mars Helicopter - NASA Science

NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter completed 72 historic flights since first taking to the skies above the Red Planet.

mars.nasa.gov

Live stream:

 

[waltesefalcon]

Beat me to it! I heard about it on the radio during my drive to work this morning so the first thing I did was look for a video of it. A truly impressive feat. I was fairly skeptical about it even working in the thin Martian atmosphere.

 

[NutmegCT]

I had the same thought - in that thin atmosphere, the airfoil must be *really* efficient.

 

[charlie74]

Awesome! Helicopters were hard enough to get to work properly on Earth; this is truly an achievement. Congratulations NASA and JPL!

 

[mikephillips]

Particularly since the distance means the computer had to figure everything out itself that may not have matched parms due to the distance making flying it from earth impossible.

 

[GregW]

the computer had to figure everything out itself that may not have matched parms due to the distance making flying it from earth impossible.

I heard the project manager at JPL may have pulled the software directly off of her Roomba.

 

[Basil]

Thanks for posting this Tom! Simply amazing!

 

[pdplot]

We can make a helicopter fly on Mars but my poor daughter is still waiting for her 2019 income tax refund check. And CT unemployment wants to take back $800 that they gave her. She's been grossly underemployed for over a year.