NASA Ingenuity Summary and Reader Response Final Draft
On February 18, 2021, helicopter Ingenuity, landed on Jezero Crater, Mars, along with rover, Perseverance (Gohd, 2021). Ingenuity is the first aircraft to have flown on Mars. According to Mimi Aung, Ingenuity’s project manager at NASA, Ingenuity had been fully tested on Earth before the Mars mission. Ingenuity’s main responsibility was not research, but to test and prove that flight is possible on Mars. It is a small helicopter equipped with carbon-fiber rotors that measure 1.2 meters across. Its blades can spin up to 2500 revolutions per minute. Ingenuity faced several challenges during its mission, such as attempting flight in Mars' thin atmosphere and dealing with wind and dust storms as well as getting enough energy for survival. Ingenuity succeeded the first three flights, flying to higher altitudes and for longer durations subsequently. However, on its fourth flight attempt, Ingenuity failed to shift to "flight mode" due to software issues, which was fixed with ...