So, I have all my fingers crossed that little "Ingenuity" will take to the skies of Mars in the coming days. A technical glitch prevented it's maiden flight on the 11th of this month when a pre-flight check cause the computer to shut down it's rotating blades as they approached full speed (2500 rpm), apparently a software patch installed over the air (some app update!) has hopefully fixed the issue. The whole idea of this is utterly mind boggling and perhaps a little bonkers? Flying on Mars is equivalent to flying at 100,000ft on Earth, over twice as high as any helicopter has ever flown, the technical challenges would be enormous down here, let alone up there on another planet 300 million kilometers away!
One nice little Human touch is that onboard the Ingenuity craft is a tiny stamp sized piece of fabric, taken from the original "Wright Flyer" which ushered in the age of aviation over the sand dunes of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina back in 1903. That first flight lasted 12 seconds, the maiden flight of Ingenuity will last around 30 but never the less will have that poignant and eternal link with it's famous predecessor. I can't wait to see the pictures..
Some achievement!
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