NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter achieves historic powered flight on Mars

[WAS]

Well it did it! 10 feet of altitude and sustained hover and a successful landing. The drone was very stable in flight, and it seems all calibrations for Mars atmosphere were on-spot.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/19/22391496/nasa-ingenuity-helicopter-mars-flight-success

[Dune]

Yeah, cool, isn't it!

[D.A. Bentley (SuddenPlanet)]

Some more videos on this you might like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhsZUZmJvaM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kb96kb_Nfxk

[RichTwo]

You beat me to posting this, Jordan... quite amazing!  With the atmosphere of Mars at 1% or that of Earth's one would imagine those propellers would need to be much larger, but it looks like the JPL folks had if figured out.

[WAS]

Yep. They are bigger then usual, though. For example a quad prop setup wouldn't provide the surface area required, which is why they went double prop with larger, and with them stacked, according to the first video posted above, the first prop concentrates air to the second prop, creating much more efficient lift.

[D.A. Bentley (SuddenPlanet)]

What are those little spikes on the blades near the rotation center you wonder?

https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/86482/what-are-the-spikes-on-ingenuitys-blades

[WAS]

What are those little spikes on the blades near the rotation center you wonder?

https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/86482/what-are-the-spikes-on-ingenuitys-blades

I'm pretty sure it blows away downward thrust from the blades attachment to the rotor. There is also delicate little shifters that pitch the blades when it gets to a certain point in rotation which cause it to be able to actually maneuver in the air, and they may be so light and fragile wind could prevent proper function to shift the COM to make the craft go forward or whatever direction.

I honestly can't find a diagram that mentions those fins, but from how they explained it functions in the first video posted above, it seems pretty logical.

[archonforest]

This new mars exploration is insane. The quality of the pictures we are getting from there are mind blowing.