NASA’s First Mars Helicopter Ingenuity – Burning Issues – Free PDF Download

Mars Mission 2020

• The Mars 2020 mission with its Perseverance rover is part of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program, a long-term effort of robotic exploration of the Red Planet.
• The Mars 2020 mission addresses key Astrobiology questions about the potential for life on Mars.
• The mission takes the next step by not only seeking signs of habitable conditions on Mars in the ancient past, but also searching for signs of past microbial life itself.

Components of Mars Mission

• The three major components of the Mars 2020 spacecraft are

1. The Cruise Stage for travel between Earth and Mars
2. The Entry, Descent, and Landing System (EDLS) that includes the aero shell, parachute, descent vehicle, and sky crane
3. The Perseverance Rover.

Perseverance Mars Rover 2020

• The Perseverance rover’s design is derived from the Curiosity rover.
• Engineers redesigned the Perseverance rover wheels to be more robust than Curiosity’s wheels, which have sustained some damage.
• Mars 2020 is heavier than its predecessor, Curiosity, by 17% (899 kg to 1050 kg).
• It will also carry a helicopter drone called ingenuity.

Helicopter: Ingenuity

• The Mars Helicopter, Ingenuity, is a technology demonstration to test powered flight on another world for the first time.

• It is hitching a ride on the Perseverance rover.
• That will be a major milestone: the very first powered flight in the extremely thin atmosphere of Mars! After that, the team will attempt additional experimental flights of incrementally farther distance and greater altitude.

High School Student Names NASA’s Mars Helicopter

•  Ingenuity was the name chosen by the U.S. space agency NASA in a competition involving thousands of students across America. The name was suggested by Vaneeza Rupani, a junior at Tuscaloosa County High School in Northport, Alabama.

Why Vaneeza Rupani called it ingenuity

•  Rupani explained her name choice. She wrote that ingenuity is what permits us “to accomplish amazing things” and “expand our horizons to the edges of the universe.”

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