Celebrating the first helicopter ride on Mars

The Ingenuity is a small robotic solar helicopter that is part of NASA's Mars 2020 program with the Perseverance rover. On 19 April 2021, it completed the first-ever flight by an aircraft on Mars, lasting 39 seconds. It rose vertically about three meters, hovered, rotated in place in a planned maneuver, and landed successfully. Ingenuity carries no scientific instruments except a video camera for this technology demonstration. However, the success of this helicopter could form the foundation on which more sophisticated aircraft might be developed for aerial exploration and sample retrieval from more inaccessible regions of Mars. This technology could also be deployed on other planetary bodies that possess an atmosphere. All of us at FUTEK extend our congratulations to the NASA/JPL team on this extraordinary accomplishment.

And, in the meantime, another incredible vehicle keeps chugging along on the Red Planet. Five years into its mission, the Mars exploration rover Curiosity continues to explore the surface of Mars and send back extraordinary science from its terrain, outperforming NASA's original expectations. So are FUTEK's two custom sensors for the project, which have played an even more vital role in the mission than was first anticipated. When the rover's original drill mechanism failed, the JPL team found a way to configure the two FUTEK sensors to stabilize and control the drilling so the sample collection and analysis could resume.

We're so humbled and proud to be part of this mission and look forward to celebrating more space explorations breakthroughs in the future. If you want to learn more about FUTEK's collaborations with NASA and what it takes to get two sensors to operate around the clock in cryogenic temperatures for almost a decade, listen to this fascinating conversation between Javad and our Director of Quality Assurance Thomas Bowles.