AOPA Pilot Magazine - July 2021 - 35

MILESTONES |
First powered flight on Mars
The newest Wright Brothers Field is on another planet
BY JIM MOORE
ITS ROTORS SPINNING furiously in the thin
Martian atmosphere, NASA's Ingenuity
made mankind's first controlled flight on
another planet in the early morning hours
of April 19. A small black-and-white image
of the helicopter's shadow was the first of
many photographs and video beamed back
across nearly 180 million miles. It took 16
minutes for the radio signals to travel across
that gap, which is one reason why Ingenuity
is fully autonomous. Engineers at the NASA
Jet Propulsion Laboratory gave the launch
command; on-board systems executed the
brief flight that began at 3:34 a.m. Eastern
Daylight Time (12:33 Local Mean Solar
Time, or Mars time), lasting 39.1 seconds.
The helicopter, 19.3 inches tall with
a takeoff weight of 4 pounds (on Earth),
achieved its objectives, including a stable
hover lasting 30 seconds 10 feet above the
Martian soil. If that sounds unimpressive,
consider that the atmospheric pressure
on the surface of Mars is 0.095 pounds per
square inch, compared to 14.7 per square
inch on Earth. In effect, Ingenuity launched
at an Earth-equivalent pressure altitude of
more than 100,000 feet.
Ingenuity has a flight campaign ahead
that its creators hope will demonstrate the
feasibility of aerial exploration of Mars,
and high-resolution photos and videos
will document each step. While the Wright
brothers had their hands full capturing
even one image of their first flight, NASA
has many cameras aboard Ingenuity and
Perseverance. The rover was positioned 211
feet away from the delicate helicopter to
document the maiden flight and report the
results back to JPL engineers eagerly waiting
for the debrief in Pasadena, California.
The aeronautics and space agency went
all-in on the Wright brothers parallels
since long before Perseverance departed
Earth with Ingenuity stowed in its belly last
July. A small swatch of muslin clipped from
the lower-left wing of the Wright brothers
Flyer 1 is secured with tape around a cable
extending from the helicopter's solar
panel, with a dot of epoxy and white polyester
cord providing further security for
the artifact.
" Now, 117 years after the Wright brothers
succeeded in making the first flight on
our planet, NASA's Ingenuity helicopter
has succeeded in performing this amazing
feat on another world, " said Thomas
Zurbuchen, NASA associate administrator
for science. " While these two iconic
moments in aviation history may be separated
by time and 173 million miles of
space, they now will forever be linked. As
an homage to the two innovative bicycle
makers from Dayton, this first of many airfields
on other worlds will now be known
as Wright Brothers Field, in recognition of
the ingenuity and innovation that continue
to propel exploration. "
EMAIL james.moore@aopa.org
aopa.org/pilot AOPA PILOT | 35
COURTESY NASA
http://www.aopa.org/pilot

AOPA Pilot Magazine - July 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of AOPA Pilot Magazine - July 2021

Contents
AOPA Pilot Magazine - July 2021 - Intro
AOPA Pilot Magazine - July 2021 - Cover1
AOPA Pilot Magazine - July 2021 - Cover2
AOPA Pilot Magazine - July 2021 - Contents
AOPA Pilot Magazine - July 2021 - 2
AOPA Pilot Magazine - July 2021 - 3
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AOPA Pilot Magazine - July 2021 - Cover3
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