A year ago, the machine achieved a historic premiere: a flight in the Martian atmosphere that was impossible to simulate on Earth. A simple technological demonstrator, this little helicopter is still working today. He proved that aerial exploration of the planets is possible.
Ingenuity, artist photo © NASA/JPLOriginally programmed for five short flights in a month, Ingenuity never ceases to surprise its designers. Developed by NASA, this small helicopter made the first powered flight on Mars on April 19, 2021. Today he has 25 flights on the clock, almost 6,000 meters of altitude in a total of 46 minutes. That may seem paltry compared to a remote-controlled helicopter. Still, it’s an achievement. Because flying a machine in such a sparse atmosphere as that of Mars required many challenges. Most notably, it was impossible to replicate the Red Planet’s atmospheric conditions in the laboratory. But in April 2021, the first static chip jump was hailed as a feat.
Mimi Aung, the project’s chief engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, envisioned a machine with oversized blades to create lift. She equipped it with an ultra-fast rotor and a solar panel to charge the battery. And everything keeps working. This success has also earned him being named one of the 100 most influential people of 2021 by The Times.
“What we see there gives a glimpse of the future”
Without an initial science goal, Ingenuity is a demonstrator. In other words, a test to check if a daring idea can work. NASA has used this technique in the past, points out Christophe Chaffardon, Director of Science, Culture and Education at the Cité de l’Espace in Toulouse. “Twenty-five years ago, the Americans took a small demonstrator of this type, Sojourner, a small shoebox-sized rover, to Mars to see if it could drive on Mars. And yes, it could drive And 25 years later, NASA was able to send in a car-sized rover, like Perseverance, so what we’re seeing there foreshadows the future.” larger helicopters will be explored, with the advantage that they will be able to cover greater distances and offer a different perspective than rolling robots or orbiting satellites.
It is indeed a new approach that is taking shape. Complementary to other exploration tools for future planetary missions. NASA is already working on Dragonfly, another drone that will fly over Saturn’s moon Titan in 2034. She must face other challenges: the acidity of Titan’s air and its heat. Once it has landed, its scientific instruments must perform a whole series of analyses.