Helicopter Makes Historic First Flight On Mars!

"Ingenuity" is the small (19" tall), lightweight (4 lbs. on Earth; 1.5 lbs. on Mars), and very expensive ($80 million) NASA helicopter (similar to a drone) that lifted off the surface of Mars early this morning. This was the first flight of a non-self propelled vehicle on another planet. History was made and the Wright Brothers would be jealous!

An ordinary Earth-bound helicopter flies only because the spinning rotor blade has a relatively dense atmosphere to push against (Newton's 3rd Law). The rotor speed of a Blackhawk military helicopter is 254 rpm (rotation per minute; or about 4 spins per second).

The Martian atmosphere has a density so low that a helium balloon would fall like a rock.

On Mars, a Blackhawk helicopter weighing 5,187 lbs. (13,650 lbs. on Earth) could not lift off and fly because the Martian atmosphere is too thin, providing too little air to push against.

What makes this first (40 sec.) flight of Ingenuity such an amazing accomplishment is the fact that engineers overcame the limitations of the Martian atmosphere in two very challenging ways: 1) Design and build an extremely lightweight chopper, and 2) Design and construct an electric motor capable of producing a rotor speed of 2,400 rpm (40 spins per second)! That's 10 times the rotor speed of our Earth-bound helicopter! Engineers did gain one advantage of being on a smaller planet - the Ingenuity helicopter weighs only 1.5 lbs. on Mars thanks to the significantly weaker gravitational field.

Congratulations to all of the aeronautical and space engineers at NASA who made this historic first flight on another planet possible.