What is it like to fly on Mars?
The Red Planet is a very different place than the Blue Marble. Gravity is about one-fourth of what it is on Earth, so it would see that getting and staying airborne would be easier. But since the Martian atmosphere is about 100 times thinner on its surface than what the Earth's air is at sea level, getting and staying airborne is much harder.
And yet, it's not impossible, as the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter that was packed onboard the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover has demonstrated.
In the following video Veritasium's Derek Muller presents a concise history of the challenges the designers and programmers of the Ingenuity helicopter had to overcome to fly on Mars. At least, until it crash-landed on its 72nd flight.
For our money, the most amazing part of the video comes from the lessons learned from the experience of flying on Mars that will be going into the next generations of machines that will fly on Mars. That there will be next generations is altogether amazing in itself.
Labels: technology
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