Successful Mars helicopter flight ‘worked pretty much flawlessly’

ANU astrophysicist and cosmologist Dr Brad Tucker says the successful debut flight of Ingenuity on Mars by NASA "worked pretty much flawlessly" as the remote operated helicopter flew for 39 seconds. “The massive communications delay between Mars and Earth - it takes 13 minutes for a signal to reach the other place - meant you couldn’t fly it in real time so this thing just had to do it itself after some programming,” he told Sky News. “That partially made the success even more sweet that this thing worked pretty much flawlessly and to a T on a very distant planet.” Dr Tucker said for the Ingenuity helicopter to work it would have to consider factors which could be pinpointed on Earth but not Mars, making the flight “that much more dramatic”. “The atmosphere is so weak, it’s about one per cent the density, there’s less pressure, there’s also less gravity so all of these things change the way this flight works compared to here on Earth.” “Then the added complications of it’s very cold on Mars, you don’t have detailed weather, was there wind, was there a change of pressure, so all of these things that affect normal aeroplane travel here on earth are just that much more dramatic on Mars. “The fact that they did get it right on the first go, not many of us are very successful on a first try.”

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