First Flight On Mars

On April 19, NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter became the first aircraft to fly on another planet.

Our most recent package details the historic first flight of the 4-lb. robotic rotorcraft, which lasted 39.1 seconds, and its follow-up venture on April 22, and looks ahead to its future test program. The technology lays the groundwork for aerial exploration of Mars, an aeronautical feat given the air density of Mars is less than 1% of the density on Earth. See below for more.

“How do we use aerial mobility in the future on Mars, to help not just robotic exploration, but to help human exploration?”
Ellen Stofan
Smithsonian
Oct 16, 2015
Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) says the return-to-flight mission of its Falcon 9 rocket will lift 11 second-generation machine-to-machine satellites for Orbcomm, rather than SES-9.
Oct 16, 2015
Here is Aviation Week’s exclusive, behind-the-scenes look at the new Sbirs ops center and why it is ushering in an “explosion” of new ways to use overhead infrared data for intelligence and civil, war operations.
Oct 16, 2015
Israel’s growing space economy looks beyond limited domestic markets in telecom, Earth observation and science as it expands into international commercial business.
Oct 16, 2015
House to vote on Ex-Im Bank at last. Army studies Russian UAV ops in Ukraine. NASA plans for a return to the Moon in the long run. And the State Department prepares to sell Black Hawks to Saudi Arabia.
Oct 14, 2015
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden says the congressionally mandated U.S. ban preventing space cooperation with China is “temporary.”
Oct 14, 2015
Internecine warfare within the House Republican caucus is exacerbating the budget politics that complicated NASA’s Mars mission planning.
Oct 14, 2015
Glide and powered test flights of SpaceShipTwo are expected to resume in 2016.
Oct 12, 2015
NASA is offering commercial startups initial no fee access to hundreds of its patented technologies as a means of creating greater access to new U. S. developed products and services.