The Mars helicopter “Ingenuity” once again exceeded expectations during its 59th flight. The small plane took off on September 16 for its highest flight yet on the Red Planet.
“Ingenuity has set a new record! The MarsHelicopter successfully completed flight 59 and flew its highest altitude yet: 20 meters [66 Fuß]. The helicopter aircraft was airborne for 142.59 seconds,” NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, based in Pasadena, California, posted on X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday.
Rotors spin extremely fast
The helicopter must endure extreme conditions on the Red Planet: At night it is as cold as minus 90 degrees, which could easily be a death sentence for batteries and electronics. Because of its thin atmosphere, which is roughly only one percent as dense as Earth’s, Ingenuity’s rotors must accelerate to 2,537 revolutions per minute – many times more than those of helicopters on Earth, about the frequency of hummingbirds’ wing beats . ‘Ingenuity’ (photo below) obtains the energy for this from its battery, which is powered by solar energy.
The mini-helicopter was on board NASA’s ‘Perseverance’ rover in late February 2021 – after 203 days of flying and covering 472 million kilometers – performing a risky maneuver in a dry Martian lake called Jezero Crater.
Source: Krone
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