Ingenuity helicopter on Mars- USA

NASA has re-established contact with its Ingenuity helicopter on Mars, the US space agency said recently.

Ingenuity Mars Helicopter

• It is a small, autonomous aircraft. that flew to Mars aboard NASA’s Perseverance rover.
• It was sent to Mars to perform experimental flight tests to determine if powered, controlled flight at the Red Planet was possible.
• Ingenuity’s mission is experimental in nature and completely independent of the rover’s science mission.
• Ingenuity was deployed to the surface on April 4, 2021.

On April 19, it became the first aircraft in history to make a powered, controlled flight on another planet. 

• • It rose to a height of 10 feet, hovered for 30 seconds, and then descended back to the ground.
  • The flight lasted 39.1 seconds. 
  • It managed to fly in Mars’ thin atmosphere, which isn’t conducive for flying.

It’s piloted by onboard guidance, navigation, and control systems running algorithms.Perseverance acts as a relay between the chopper and the earth.

Perseverance Rover

• It is a robotic explorer to land on Mars as part of NASA’s ongoing Mars 2020 Mission.
• Main Job: Seek signs of ancient life and collect samples of rock and regolith (broken rock and soil) for possible return to Earth.
• The rover will collect samples of rock and soil, encase them in tubes, and leave them on the planet's surface to be returned to Earth at a future date.
• Launch: It was launched on July 30, 2020, from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
• Landing: Successfully landed on the surface of Mar's Jezero Crater on February 18, 2021.
• Features:
  • It is about 3 metres long, 2.7 metres wide, and 2.2 metres tall.
  • It is about the size of a car but weighs only about 1,025 kilograms with all instruments on board.
  • Power source: Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (MMRTG). 

Converts heat from the radioactive decay of plutonium into electricity.