Ingenuity: The First Flight on Mars How NASA Conquered the Red Planets Sky

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:07][music] >> Hello guys, welcome to Cosmo expanse.

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[00:03:54]>> Mhm.

[00:04:50]>> I'm the extended mission [music] of continuing to scout and push the flight envelope of what's possible. The testing being done in this room is part of [music] the next helicopter mission to Mars called the sample recovery helicopters.

[00:05:00]The goal is to be a backup to [music] get these samples back to Earth. Put simply, Perseverance collects the sample tubes, the [music] sample return lander will retrieve those samples directly from Perseverance, and then there's a rocket inside of that lander that's actually going to send those samples back to Earth.

[00:05:17]As a backup to getting those sample tubes [music] from Mars back to the lander, we're designing the next generation of helicopters to not only be able to pick up and carry a sample tube, [music] but also drive around on the surface. Are there any other ways Ingenuity is influencing future Mars exploration? [music] We're looking at a research concept called Mars Science Helicopter.

[00:05:37]It's a hexacopter, [music] so six rotors in a ring around a central structure.

[00:05:43]It's about the size of the rover, and [music] you can imagine in the future you will have fleets of these Mars Science Helicopters flying around bringing >> [music] >> important payloads to areas of Mars that we've never been able to access before.