After successful landing on Mars, NASA’s Engineered Mars Helicopter continues to hold new records one after the other. This is the first rotorcraft to land on Mars, which has been in constant discussion for the last few days. This chopper has spent its first cold night on Mars, which is a big success for NASA. Actually, the night of Mars is very cold. The surface temperature here can fall to -90 ° C.
Safe and sound on the surface! Our Ingenuity #MarsHelicopter survived the first cold night on its own, a major milestone on the Red Planet, where surface temps can plunge as low as -130° F (-90° C). Its first flight attempt will be no sooner than April 11: https://t.co/pdr8Cssr1R pic.twitter.com/BAQj8KmeRI
– NASA (@NASA) April 5, 2021
The special thing is that in this mission of NASA, the command of this helicopter sent with the rover is in the hands of an Indian. J Bob Balaram of Indian origin is the only person who has given the concept of helicopter engineer and is now leading the team engaged in this mission. That was the year 1980, when he went to America for higher education after completing his B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering from IIT.
NASA’s Ingenuity mini-helicopter has been dropped on the surface of Mars in preparation for its first flight, the US space agency says #MarsHelicopter @NASAPersevere pic.twitter.com/oB6j806aRy
– AFP News Agency (@AFP) April 4, 2021
In 1982, he completed his post graduation in Computer and System Engineering from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and started preparing for Ph.D. Currently, Balaram is the Chief Engineer of Mars Helicopter Ingenuity. According to the information given on NASA’s Meet the Martian page, he is leading the team developing anti, descent and landing, ie EDL simulator for Ingenuity at NASA.
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