Astronomy Picture of the Day - Ingenuity: A Mini-Helicopter Now on Mars

APOD.NASA.gov ^ | 2 Mar, 2021 | Illustration Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, Mars 2020 - Perseverance

[MtnClimber]

Explanation: What if you could fly around Mars? NASA may have achieved that capability last month with the landing of Perseverance, a rover which included a small flight-worthy companion called Ingenuity, nicknamed Ginny. Even though Ginny is small -- a toaster-sized helicopter with four long legs and two even-longer (1.2-meter) rotors, she is the first of her kind -- there has never been anything like her before. After being deployed, possibly in April, the car-sized Perseverance ("Percy") will back away to give Ginny ample room to attempt her unprecedented first flight. In the featured artistic illustration, Ginny's long rotors are depicted giving her the lift she needs to fly into the thin Martian atmosphere and explore the area near Perseverance. Although Ingenuity herself will not fly very far, she is a prototype for all future airborne Solar-System robots that may fly far across not only Mars, but Titan.

[MtnClimber]

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[MtnClimber]

Today's "photo" is an illustration.

[MtnClimber]

Pinging the APOD list.

🪐 🌟 🌌

[monkeyshine]

Pretty cool.

Hopefully the rover’s wheels won’t get caught in any gopher holes :-)

[MtnClimber]

And hopefully it won't run into the flag that the astronauts left.

[caltaxed]

No trees to get caught in, fortunately.

The replacement cost would be steep through the NASA procurement system.

[PilotDave]

More drone than helicopter..

[null and void]

Red Dwarf Ping!

Toaster sized, eh?

But can it talk???

[Ezekiel]

a toaster-sized helicopter with four long legs and two even-longer (1.2-meter) rotors, she is the first of her kind -- there has never been anything like her before.

Ingenuity -- it's the life on Mars everyone's been looking for.

Life finds a way.

Percy + Ginny -- it's like Jacob and Rachel, a match made in heaven. Or space as it were.

A Sol *is* a Mars-Day, after all.

[null and void]

Does that make them Sol mates?

[Stosh]

Surprised Mars has enough of an atmosphere for a helicopter to actually work

[TChad]

We have achieved air supremacy!

[Vaquero]

Perseverance is also A drone.

[steve86]

Counter-rotating coaxial rotors, tail-less heli.

[Vaquero]

Specially built to fly in Mars 1% atmosphere. The 1/3 earth’s gravity should help it though.

[ZOOKER]

Today's "photo" is an illustration.

That answers my question: "Who took the picture?"

[Stosh]

I’m assuming the blade size relative to the mass of the craft must be substantially greater than what we see on terrestrial vessels - still, pretty amazing.

[Ezekiel]

Indeed.

Every day on Mars is Mars-Day, the “third day”, i.e. “Tues” day.

Ginny is charging up, getting ready to rise, on a Sol-day.

On Mars, “sun”day *is* the third day.

[Harpotoo]

How much is it costing to view that chiphole?

[Vaquero]

Thick blades, super high rpm. Very short flights. Unlike the rover which is nuclear the helicopter is solar powered and needs long and frequent recharges.