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
Nov 24, 2023
The UAE Space Agency is leading the first participation of the Space Pavilion in the 28th Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC (COP 28).
Nov 24, 2023
Resilient PNT will require multiple alternatives to the singular GPS.
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Major technical risks were retired by the performance of SpaceX’s Super Heavy rocket.
Nov 23, 2023
SpaceX’s second integrated flight test of the Starship-Super Heavy launch system ended earlier than planned, but proved Super Heavy as an orbital-class launcher.
Nov 23, 2023
Our roundup of the main aerospace and defense stories making the news this week.
Nov 22, 2023
Weak, angled signals from global navigation satellite system satellites are spawning new applications.
Nov 20, 2023
The 50-year-old GPS program is increasingly vulnerable to a proliferation of tools used to jam and spoof the weak and unencrypted civilian signal.
Nov 20, 2023
GPS has become a household term over the last 50 years. Over the coming decades, it is likely to be subsumed into another three-letter term, PNT.