CAPA CANAVERAL, Florida (AP): A piece of the Wright brothers’ first plane is on Mars.
NASA’s experimental Martian helicopter contains a small sample of fabric from the 1903 Wright Flyer, the space agency revealed Tuesday. The helicopter, called the Ingenuity, launched into the red planet with the Perseverance rover, which arrived last month.
The aircraft will attempt to make the first controlled and motorized flight to another planet before April 8. It will mark a “Wright Brothers moment,” said Bobby Braun, director of planetary science at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
The Carillon Historical Park in Dayton, Ohio, Wright’s hometown, he donated the piece of muslin from the lower left wing of the plane, at the request of NASA.
The show made the 300 million-mile trip to Mars with the blessing of the Wright brothers ’great-granddaughter and great-grandson, said park commissioner Steve Lucht.
“Wilbur and Orville Wright would be delighted to know that a small piece of their 1903 Wright Flyer I, the machine that launched the Space Age in just a quarter of a mile, will be back on fire in history!” Amanda Wright Lane and Stephen Wright said in a statement provided by the park.
Orville Wright was aboard the world’s first controlled and controlled flight on December 17, 1903 to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The brothers took turns, making four flights that day.
A piece of wood and fabric from Wright Flyer flew to the moon with Neil Armstrong from Apollo 11 in 1969. A sample also accompanied John Glenn into orbit aboard the space shuttle Discovery in 1998. The two astronauts were from ‘Ohio.
NASA’s 1.8-pound (1.8-kilogram) helicopter will attempt to rise 3 meters (10 feet) into the extremely thin Martian air in its first jump. Up to five increasingly long and long flights are planned over the course of a month.
The material is glued to a cable under the helicopter’s solar panel, which climbs to the top like a graduate mortar.
For now, the wit is still attached to the rover’s belly. A protective shield took off over the weekend and left the long-legged helicopter exposed.
The helicopter aerodrome is located right next to the rover’s landing site in Jezero Crater. The rover will observe the test flights from a distant pole, before moving away to pursue its own mission: the search for signs of ancient Martian life. Rock samples will be reserved for eventual return to Earth.
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department is supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.