Surprised Mars has enough of an atmosphere for a helicopter to actually work
Specially built to fly in Mars 1% atmosphere. The 1/3 earth’s gravity should help it though.
“ Surprised Mars has enough of an atmosphere for a helicopter to actually work.”
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Don’t forget that gravity is considerably less.
Taking Flight on Another World
The Mars Helicopter, Ingenuity, is a technology demonstration to test powered flight on another world for the first time. It hitched a ride to Mars on the Perseverance rover. Once the team finds a suitable “helipad” location, the rover will release Ingenuity to perform a series of test flights over a 30-Martian-day experimental window beginning sometime in the spring.
For the first flight, the helicopter will take off a few feet from the ground, hover in the air for about 20 to 30 seconds, and land. That will be a major milestone: the very first powered flight in the extremely thin atmosphere of Mars.
After that, the team will attempt additional experimental flights of incrementally farther distance and greater altitude. After the helicopter completes its technology demonstration, Perseverance will continue its scientific mission.
https://mars.nasa.gov/technology/helicopter/
They tested helicopters on earth.
"The testing took place in the 25-foot space simulation chamber at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California where the Martian atmosphere was reproduced."