NASA’s incredible Ingenuity helicopter spent nearly three flying across the surface of Mars, becoming the first aircraft to achieve powered, controlled flight on a planet other than Earth.
After suffering damage to one of its blades in early 2024, Ingenuity was grounded for good, and now rests on the martian surface as a testament to technological innovation and the triumph of autonomous flight on another planet.
In an exciting development, the plucky helicopter has now inspired Skyfall, a mission concept recently unveiled by Virginia-based AeroVironment (AV) and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), who worked together to develop the Ingenuity aircraft.
As you can see in the video at the top of this page, the Skyfall mission is designed to deploy not one but six helicopters on Mars, each of which would fly off to explore various locations selected by NASA as potential landing spots for the first crewed mission to the red planet, which could take place in the 2030s. The gathered data could also help scientists learn more about Mars, contributing to the expanding database of information collected by other Mars vehicles such as the Perseverance and Curiosity rovers.
The video shows the dramatic Skyfall Maneuver, described by AV as “an innovative entry, descent, and landing technique whereby the six rotorcraft deploy from their entry capsule during its descent through the martian atmosphere.”
With the helicopters flying down to the Mars surface under their own power, the Skyfall system would do away with the need for a landing platform, which is one of the most expensive parts of any Mars mission and also carries huge risk.
Just like Ingenuity, each helicopter would be capable of operating autonomously, and beam high-resolution imagery back to Earth for analysis, allowing mission planners to select the best possible landing location for the first human mission.
“Skyfall offers a revolutionary new approach to Mars exploration that is faster and more affordable than anything that’s come before it,” said William Pomerantz, head of space ventures at AV. “Thanks to a true partnership between industry and government, we’re expanding the unprecedented success of Ingenuity.”
Pomerantz added that with six helicopters, “Skyfall offers a low-cost solution that multiplies the range we would cover, the data we would collect, and the scientific research we would conduct, making humanity’s first footprints on Mars meaningfully closer.”
With NASA’s first human missions in mind and the need to identify an ideal landing area, AV is already working with NASA’s JPL in the hope of getting the green light for the mission before working toward a potential 2028 launch.
After 13 suborbital test flights and more than $15 billion in development costs, SpaceX's Starship has finally reached orbit. The 407-foot megarocket, the most powerful ever built, lifted off from Starbase, Texas, on Monday and delivered its first real payload on it's 14th attempt. The celebration came with an asterisk, though, since SpaceX had to cut the planned 10-hour mission to roughly three hours.
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/2104601695711904180
SpaceX is finally ready to give Starship its biggest test yet. The company says the massive rocket's 14th test flight is scheduled for September 22, when it will attempt to put the upper stage into Earth orbit for the first time. The launch is currently pending regulatory approval, with a 75-minute window opening at 7:15 a.m. CT.
Starship has 26 Starlink satellites to deliver
For decades, humanity has looked up at the Moon and wondered what it would be like to live on it. Think sprawling cities, factories, research centers, and permanent human settlements. Unfortunately, there is one fairly fundamental problem with that vision.
A new study published in Frontiers in Space Technologies argues that even the Moon's potentially enormous reserves of frozen water may be nowhere near enough to support city-sized populations sustainably. Researchers Martin Elvis and Jonathan McDowell estimate that the permanently shadowed regions near the lunar poles could contain roughly one billion tons of water. It sounds like an extraordinary amount until you put a million thirsty humans next to it.