The Ingenuity helicopter is, without a doubt, a great engineering feat. At first glance, of course, it may seem that it is a minor ingenuity, comparable to a drone that we can buy for less than one hundred euros, but of course, in this case we must remember the many singularities of the Mars Perseverance travel companion , to once again reach the conclusion that, indeed, this little helicopter has very, very little of normality.
More than two and a half years have passed since Perseverance began its journey to Mars, and last February we celebrated two years since its arrival on the surface of the red planet. At that time he was finishing a long journey, but the challenges began for the first device designed by the human being that would fly on another planet. And we return to the anniversaries, because next Wednesday, April 19, it will be two years since the historic first flight of the Ingenuity. The flight was broadcast by NASA and its success opened great doors to the future of space exploration.
After the first flight the following ones arrived, and also those responsible for the mission decided that, thanks to its excellent performance, Ingenuity could not only take images of the Jezero crater, it could also become an explorer at the service of Perseverance, thus avoiding so that the mobile laboratory would travel through dangerous areas that, due to its orography, could complicate or even prevent its subsequent movements.
In the initial definition of the mission, the helicopter was scheduled to carry out a total of five flights. However, as we can read on CNN, Ingenuity has reached fifty flights on Mars. The last of them, for the moment, took place last Thursday and, as is a constant in helicopter operations, it occurred as planned, satisfactorily and without incident. And yes, on such a special flight, again exceeded a previous record, rising to 18 metersthe highest height reached so far, in a flight of 322.2 meters.
The helicopter’s short but intense history is marked by limits broken, records set and renewed and, we must remember, all of this in some really tough operating conditions. This has led to fears for its persistence on more than one occasion, and we will go through a similar situation again when the next Martian winter approaches. But whether he gets over it or not, there’s no doubt that Ingenuity has already made history.
