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
Jul 02, 2012
Russia has claimed the successful test of a prototype of new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). The new missile was fired from a mobile launcher at the Plesetsk spaceport in May and its warhead reached a designated area in the Kura test range on the Kamchatka Peninsula. The military also said the missile will have improved capabilities to overcome anti-ballistic missile defenses being deployed by the U.S.—an important new priority for Moscow after years of trying to forestall U.S. missile-defense developments.
Jul 02, 2012
Walter J. Zable, the aerospace industry's oldest and longest-serving CEO and a pioneer in the field of global positioning, died June 23 of natural causes at a San Diego-area hospital. He was 97. Zable founded Cubic Corp. in 1951 in a San Diego storefront. Long before GPS was invented, the company developed a satellite-based technology that identified the location of land masses and enabled the U.S. military to pinpoint targets to improve the accuracy of ballistic missiles. Later, Cubic fielded the world's first instrumented air combat training system.
Jul 02, 2012
New flight trials for X-51, X-48, Phantom Eye demonstrate advanced vehicles
Jul 02, 2012
Lockheed VP says one way Orion could take astronauts to Mars
Jul 02, 2012
Sierra Nevada Advances Commercial Spaceplane...............
Jul 02, 2012
Astrium Services started in 2003 in the wake of a U.K. Defense Ministry decision to outsource secure satellite telecommunications to the private sector. Since then, CEO Eric Beranger has turned the division of European aerospace giant EADS into a high-stakes bet on government outsourcing for key space activities, taking privatization of satellite communications and remote-sensing services further than any other company in the industry and in some cases assuming big risks with little or no government backing.
Jul 02, 2012
An article that appeared in the June 25 issue of AW&ST (p. 36) included an incorrect spelling of the name of Intelsat Chief Technical Officer Thierry Guillemin.
Jul 02, 2012
In the complex hypersonics test environment, events rarely turn out 100% as planned. But researchers at Germany's DLR aerospace center remain optimistic that they have enough data to refine the future Shefex III (Sharp-Edged Flight Experiment) demonstrator even as data uncertainty hangs over the final seconds of the Shefex II's flight.