Through small flights, NASA is exploring the region around perseverance. For example, the tenth voyage was intended to photograph a number of hills that might be of interest for later research.
The most complex flight to date was in the thin Martian sky, according to NASA, where creativity had to go beyond ten predetermined points, the so-called waypoints.
With flights, NASA also wants to investigate whether it is possible in the future to send a larger helicopter to Mars that can reach places where Mars astronauts cannot reach.
“The Wright Brothers Moment”
Before that, there was a lot of uncertainty about what could be achieved with small helicopters. Never before has a helicopter been able to fly in the sky on another planet.
There were all kinds of other unpredictable things. Like the drop in air pressure and temperatures on Mars, as well as the battery capacity of solar-charged helicopters. So the helicopter was taken mainly for the experiment. Initially, no more than four flights were planned.
The success of the first flight was on April 19, according to NASA, a “The Wright Brothers Moment”. It is not for nothing that the lightweight helicopter received a small right-flyer cloth. The Wright brothers made the first powered flight on Earth in 1903 with this aircraft.
Since the first flight, NASA has updated the mini-heli twice, which has improved image quality and made the drone more stable.