NASA’s Martian helicopter, Ingenuity, takes off

IN DECEMBER 1903 Orville and Wilbur Wright’s Flyer lifted off the ground for the first time, near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, and proved that powered, controlled flight was possible on Earth. On April 19th, at 7.34am Universal Time, a small American helicopter called Ingenuity proved it works on another world, too. Following an intricately planned flight sequence six years in the making, the 1.8kg craft spun its contra-rotating twin rotor-blades at 2,400rpm, to ascend from the surface of Mars. It climbed to an altitude of three metres, hovered for 30 seconds, took a photograph of its own shadow (pictured) and touched back down on the ground.

Flying conditions on Mars are rather different from those on Earth. Though it has only a third of Earth’s gravity at its surface, which sounds as if it might make the task of flying there easier, Mars’s atmosphere has a mere hundredth of the density of Earth’s. This means there is little air to push against when attempting to fly. To compensate, Ingenuity’s blades spin five times faster than those of a typical helicopter on Earth.