A little helicopter by the name of "Ingenuity" made aviation history in April 2021 when it took off from the surface of Mars and became the first ship to fly in another planet's atmosphere
It might have also opened up new opportunities for NASA's exploration of other planets' surfaces in the future.
The development of Ingenuity and the laborious multi-year testing and planning procedure that permitted the drone to fly
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drone to fly in the tenuous atmosphere of the red planet were covered by correspondent Anderson Cooper on Sunday's episode of 60 Minutes.
Image Credit:christiansciencemoniter
Ben Pipenberg, a mechanical engineer at AeroVironment, a business that makes drones for both military and commercial use, said: "It has to be a spaceship as well as an aircraft."
"Additionally, the air density on Mars makes flying it as an aircraft quite difficult. It resembles Earth from a height of 100,000 feet."
For NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pipenberg and Matt Keennon oversaw a team at AeroVironment that constructed the motors, rotors, and landing gear for Ingenuity (JPL)
On February 18, 2021, the drone made its initial landing on Mars inside the NASA rover "Perseverance."
The little helicopter's design prioritised weight reduction.
The drone's blades must rotate at a rate of around 2,400 revolutions per minute, which is six times quicker than that of its earthbound sibling.
The blades were made by AeroVironment out of a substance that resembled Styrofoam and was covered with carbon fibre.