The rotor blades that will carry NASA\u2019s next-generation helicopters to new Martian heights broke the sound barrier during March tests at NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. Data from the tests, which took place in a special chamber that can simulate environmental conditions on the Red Planet, indicate that the fastest traveling part of the rotor blade, the tips, can be accelerated beyond Mach 1 without breaking apart. Data gathered from 137 test runs will enable engineers to design aircraft capable of carrying heavier payloads, including science instruments.<\/p>\n
\u201cNASA had a great run with the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter<\/a>, but we are asking these next-generation aircraft to do even more at the Red Planet,\u201d said Al Chen, Mars Exploration Program manager at JPL. \u201cThat\u2019s not an easy ask. While everything about Mars is hard, flying there is just about the hardest thing you can do. That\u2019s because its atmosphere is so incredibly thin that it is hard to generate lift, and yet Mars has significant gravity.\u201d<\/p>\n Ingenuity, which performed the first powered, controlled flight on another world just over five years ago on April 19, 2021<\/a>, was a trailblazing technology demonstration that did not carry science instruments. The agency\u2019s recently announced SkyFall project<\/a> and other potential future Mars aircraft will be capable of carrying payloads \u2014 including science instruments and sensors \u2014 to collect data in support of future human and robotic missions, leveraging the advantages that come with low-altitude aerial exploration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The rotor blades that will carry NASA\u2019s next-generation helicopters to new Martian heights broke the sound barrier during…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":430587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[85,46,141,145],"class_list":["post-430586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=430586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/430587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=430586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=430586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=430586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}