Name: NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter achieves historic powered flight on Mars
Brand: theverge.com
SKU: theverge-com-388
Availability: OnlineOnly

critic

NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter achieves historic powered flight on Mars

preview

The Verge logo. NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter nailed a successful debut test flight on Mars, engineers confirmed early Monday morning. The tiny spacecraft lifted itself 10 feet off the Martian surface for 39 seconds, marking the first powered flight on another world. The historic demonstration opens up tantalizing possibilities for a new mode of planetary travel that could send future rotorcraft far beyond the reach of traditional rovers.The four-pound Ingenuity helicopter lifted its tissue box-sized body at 12:34PM Mars time (3:34AM ET, Earth time), spinning its twin rotor blades to achieve its first flight in the ultrathin atmosphere of Mars. Those blades spun faster than 2,500 rpm —&nbsp;much faster than the roughly 500 rpm helicopters need to fly on Earth. The craft hovered for about 30 seconds above the surface before descending for touchdown, concluding a fully autonomous 39.1-second flight test, NASA said.The rotorcraft arrived on the Red Planet, 173 million miles from Earth, on February 18th, clinging to the underbelly of NASA’s Perseverance rover. It was deployed from Perseverance over a month later, on April 4th, starting a 31-day clock to carry out five flight tests. Monday’s successful flight sets the stage for more ambitious attempts in the next few weeks.Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) broke out in cheers upon confirmation that Ingenuity’s flight attempt appeared flawless. “Confirmed, that Ingenuity has performed its first flight of a powered aircraft on another planet,” Ingenuity chief pilot Håvard Grip declared, prompting applause inside JPL Mission Control. “We can now say that humans beings have flown a rotorcraft on another planet,” Ingenuity project manager MiMi Aung told NASA engineers in the room after confirmation of the helicopter’s successful flight test.A red-letter day on the Red Planet! — NASA JPL (@NASAJPL)“This gives us amazing hope for all of humanity. I couldn’t be more proud,” Thomas Zurbuchen, associate NASA administrator for science, . With Ingenuity, Zurbuchen said during a post-flight press conference, NASA’s engineering teams were able to find “that right line between crazy and innovative.”Just after confirmation of success, Zurbuchen said NASA named Ingenuity’s flight zone Wright Brothers Field, as a nod to the Wright brothers’ revolutionary flight in 1903 and “in recognition of the ingenuity and innovation that continue to propel exploration.” The helicopter carries on its body a postage stamp-sized piece of the Wright brothers’ iconic plane.A black-and-white image from Ingenuity’s down-facing navigation camera was the first visual confirmation of the copter’s flight, showing the experimental craft’s shadow from roughly 10 feet above the surface. Minutes after flight confirmation, a sequence of images taken by Perseverance, watching from about 211 feet away, arrived at Mission Control and put Ingenuity’s flight in motion for the first time.The flight was delayed a few times from April 11th, with one requiring engineers to reupload Ingenuity’s entire flight software after running into a during preflight tests. The helicopter has a running track-shaped flight zone at Mars’ Jezero Crater, the site of a dried-out lakebed that Perseverance will scour for signs of past microbial life.JPL director Michael Watkins said Ingenuity’s flight unlocked “the third dimension” of traveling on other worlds. “It freed us from the surface forever in planetary exploration,” he told reporters in a press conference. Ingenuity’s successful flight demonstration, nailing its midair pivot and hovering in place as planned, decisively adds powered rotorcraft to NASA’s exploration toolbox for future interplanetary missions.Ingenuity’s main mission is to demonstrate flight, with no objectives to explore Mars or carry out science experiments. Those jobs are reserved for Perseverance, whose primary life-hunting mission involves caching Martian soil samples that a future rover will send back to Earth as early as 2031.Engineers will analyze loads of data from Ingenuity’s first flight to set the parameters for its next four flights in the coming weeks, with the second one scheduled for April 22nd, NASA said. For those tests, Ingenuity will soar higher and travel across its flight zone at increasing speeds —&nbsp;though exactly how high and how fast is up for debate. During the press conference, Grip was modest about pushing Ingenuity to fly as high as possible: “probably ten meters, or a little bit more, but not much more than that.” That’s how high Ingenuity’s rangefinder — the laser that senses its altitude —&nbsp;can detect the ground. “Like the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk, we know that our time to make a difference at Jezero Crater, Mars is not yet over,” Aung told engineers in Mission Control just after flight confirmation. “This is just the first great flight.”Update April 19th, 4:03PM ET: This story was updated to add new information from NASA officials speaking at a post-flight press conference. Most PopularRShowtime streaming might disappear into Paramount Plus.Next year HBO Max will , and Disney’s CEO is talking about a , so this rumor about Paramount discontinuing Showtime streaming is no surprise., and Paramount’s pushing a discounted $8 (ads) or $13 (fewer ads) combo subscription until October 2nd. .[WSJ]DiOS 16 should let us swipe down for notifications.Antonio makes an excellent point here that completely slipped by me in the months I’ve been using the iOS 16 betas. Swiping down on the home screen is part of my muscle memory for Spotlight, but now that there’s an always present button on the home screen to launch Spotlight, the swipe down gesture could easily be repurposed for Notification Center. Or at least give us the option.With iOS 16 apple now gives you TWO different ways to do a search on your home screen (swipe down from center and tap the pill button at the bottom). This would have been the perfect chance to switch that down swipe to pull down the notification shade, which is all I want in iOS— Antonio G. Di Benedetto (@SuperAntonio64)Worshippers of Elon Musk have flocked to the middle of nowhere in Texas to watch SpaceX’s attempts to build a space-worthy rocket — and to find friends Must ReadsMust ReadsRevolutionizing the media with blog postsDGoogle’s first-party Pixel 6 case proves to be junk.I immediately had the impression that Google’s official cases for the Pixel 6 were awful , but a long-term review from 9to5Google shows just how bad they can get.Here’s to hoping Google does better with the Pixel 7 cases this year.[9to5Google]JSony’s State of Play event starts at 6PM ETYou probably shouldn’t expect an announcement on the level of Nintendo’s , but fingers are crossed for news of some kind about God of War Ragnarok in the . The show will air on&nbsp;&nbsp;and&nbsp;.AUber will pay $100 million to New Jersey for misclassifying drivers, gets to continue misclassifying them.Gizmodo reports that Uber will pay $100 million in back taxes to the state of New Jersey in response to an audit that concluded the company was misclassifying its drivers as independent contractors. But here’s the thing: Uber will pay any amount of money necessary to , because reclassifying them as employees would cause Uber to cease to exist. [Gizmodo]DVictoria Song says the new Fitbit Inspire 3 feels like a product from 2015.Where is the lie?PodcastsPodcastsNThe Westworld subreddit is anxious the show will be canceled before the final season.Viewership was way down this season, and the recent changes — including — don’t seem to bode well for what’s been a very expensive show. That said, this season started strong and ended with a whimper, so maybe it’s all for the best.fromJNintendo will announce a release date for the delayed Advance Wars reboot “once it has been determined,” the company told Axios.Advance Wars 1 + 2: Re-Boot Camp, a Nintendo Switch remaster of the first two Advance Wars titles, was delayed from an April launch . It was absent from .I asked Nintendo if Advance Wars 1 + 2 has been cancelled, given the lack of news about it since it was delayed due to the invasion of Ukraine.Nintendo rep's reply: "The release has been delayed. We will announce the new date once it has been determined."— Stephen Totilo (@stephentotilo)AAlex Jones is on trial yet again.The InfoWars host lost a defamation case over the Sandy Hook shooting by default, and now, a Connecticut jury will decide what he should pay. It’s a near-repeat of a similar case in Texas — but without that state’s limits on financial damages. Jones’ company has filed for bankruptcy, though, setting up a fight over the money.[The New York Times]EThe retail revolution comes for Congress: Rep. Angie Craig found out her son was trading behind her back.“As a mom, I would be grateful if my college student son was not allowed to own or trade stocks. And as a member of Congress, I’m working to pass a law to force him to listen to his mother,” she told The New York Times.[The New York Times]Most PopularMost PopularAApparently Motorola built a fully functional electric Chevy Corvette prototype in the 1990s.The Drive’s Kevin Williams has made what could be one of the greatest EV archeological discoveries of a generation: a 1987 Chevy Corvette EV built by cell-phone pioneer Motorola. This raises so many questions. First and foremost, why the hell was Motorola making cars? Electric cars for that matter? And can I drive it? There’s loads of pics and fun backstory, so I recommend you go check it out. [The Drive]EElon is Elonning again.Musk is wading into the fight between Twitter and security researcher Peiter “Mudge” Zatko again, after. Good luck to whoever at his law firm has been assigned to !Anyone know who the secret clients are? Let’s out them on Twitter rn haha. — Naughtius Maximus (@elonmusk)AThe Twitter whistleblower says he’ll work with Congress on “sorely needed” laws.Peiter “Mudge” Zatko’s attorneys say they hope he offered a window into Twitter’s business operations, including details about potential national security risks, during a Senate hearing today. Lawmakers focused on the threat of foreign agents inside Twitter and proposals to reform the FTC.An attorneys' statement:&nbsp;"Mr. Zatko is hopeful that the Committee’s work today has helped educate the public about just how dire the security and privacy situation is at Twitter ... He remains ready, willing and able to be part of the legislative reform that is sorely needed." — Adi Robertson (@thedextriarchy)RMark Zuckerberg has very good lawyers.As a way of dragging its heels in , Meta is trying to get as much court-ordered information as it possibly can on rivals like Snapchat and TikTok.The threat here is less that Meta will discover Snapchat’s secret sauce, and more that this (and a dozen other motions) will overwhelm the FTC’s ability to properly try the case with its existing resources.[Bloomberg.com]EWaze has more torture for your return to the office.The new “pokes fun at the people we can all become at work — acronym-slinging, jargon-parroting, catchphrase machines,” and features phrases like “Make a U-turn: Or what I call ‘circling back.’” Thanks, Waze, but I think I’ll stick with my Boy Band voice directions for now.Our driving experience for the month is designed to help you drive synergy.Let’s table this discussion and see if you can figure out what it is. — waze (@waze)ASpecialized teases its new e-bike brand Globe with a poem and a cheeky logo.Earlier this year, a new sub-brand called Globe dedicated to building high-quality electric utility bikes that are designed specifically to replace car trips. We still don’t know what these bikes will look like, but today the company released its brand statement in the form of a poem, which is cute. Specialized promises it will have more to say on September 27th, so mark you calendars. MA woman is suing San Francisco after the city used DNA from her rape kit to arrest her for an unrelated crime.The police’s practice of using DNA from sexual assault victims to identify suspects in other cases came to light . At the time, legal experts said the practice likely violated California’s constitution. It’s yet another example of the posed by growing DNA databases. [CBSNews]MUbisoft’s AAA games are getting more expensive.In an interview with Axios, CEO Yves Guillemot said that “the big AAA games will come at $70,” starting with Skull and Bones. , however, is listed for $50 .[Axios]

The Verge logo. NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter nailed a successful debut test flight on Mars, engineers confirmed early Monday morning. The tiny spacecraft lifted itself 10 feet off the Martian surface for 39 seconds, marking the first powered flight on another world. The historic demonstration opens up tantalizing possibilities for a new mode of planetary travel that could send future rotorcraft far beyond the reach of traditional rovers.The four-pound Ingenuity helicopter lifted its tissue box-sized body at 12:34PM Mars time (3:34AM ET, Earth time), spinning its twin rotor blades to achieve...

NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter achieves historic powered flight on Mars

No article scores yet.

CRITIC REVIEWS

PUBLIC REVIEWS