Celebrating the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter
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An artist's concept of NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter flying through the Red Planet's skies. | Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Name: Ingenuity Mars Helicopter (Nickname: Ginny)
Launched from Earth: 30 July 2020
Landed on Mars: 18 February 2021
First Flight on Mars: 19 April 2021
End of Mission on Mars: 25 January 2024
NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter was a technology demonstration to test the first powered flight on Mars. As its technology demonstration ended, AIAA marked Ingenuity’s historic mission with this tribute to the engineering determination and innovation documented by AIAA. The Institute shared statements commemorating Ingenuity’s historic first powered, controlled flight on another planet and the end of Ingenuity’s mission.
Over the years, innovators have chronicled their work on rotorcraft designed for missions on other planets and moons by authoring articles for AIAA peer-reviewed journals, books, and meeting papers for AIAA forums. Their original research results and technological progress have been published in AIAA’s Aerospace Research Central (ARC), the leading source of aerospace industry archives. AIAA is committed to ensuring students and professionals have access to the most important advances in aerospace science and technology through ARC.
Please search the ARC database for more content on this subject. Check out these AIAA publications on Ingenuity Mars Helicopter and related technologies.
Books
Planetary Exploration with Ingenuity and Dragonfly
By Ralph D. Lorenz
ISBN (print): 978-1-62410-636-1 eISBN: 978-1-62410-637-8
Publication Date: 1 June 2022The Planning and Execution of Human Missions to the Moon and Mars
By Michelle Poliskie
ISBN (print): 978-1-62410-653-8 eISBN: 978-1-62410-654-5
Publication Date: 15 June 2023Journal of Aircraft Articles
Estimation of Flyable Regions for Planetary Airships
By Tairo Kusagaya, Hirohisa Kojima and Hironori A. Fujii
Journal of Aircraft, Volume 43, Issue 4, July/Aug. 2006, published online 22 May 2012Hover Performance of a Small-Scale Helicopter Rotor for Flying on Mars
By Robin Shrestha, Moble Benedict, Vikram Hrishikeshavan and Inderjit Chopra
Journal of Aircraft, Volume 53, Issue 4, published online 24 May 2016High-Fidelity Aeromechanical Analysis of Coaxial Mars Helicopter
Daniel Escobar, Inderjit Chopra and Anubhav Datta
Journal of Aircraft, Volume 58, Issue 3, published online 10 March 2021Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics Articles
Modeling and Identification of Hover Flight Dynamics for NASA’s Mars Helicopter
By Håvard Fjær Grip, Wayne Johnson, Carlos Malpica, Daniel P. Scharf, Milan Mandić, Larry Young, Brian Allan, Bérénice Mettler, Miguel San Martin and Johnny Lam
Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics, Volume 43, Issue 2, published online 20 December 2019
AIAA Journal Articles
Improved Mars Helicopter Aerodynamic Rotor Model for Comprehensive Analyses
By Witold J. F. Koning, Wayne Johnson and Håvard F. Grip
AIAA Journal, Vol. 57, Issue 9, published online 3 July 2019Visualization of Pressure and Skin-Friction Fields on Rotating Blade Under Low-Pressure Conditions
By Takayuki Nagata ORCID Icon, Hitomi Sato, Masaki Okochi, Takafumi Matsuyama, Yosuke Sugioka, Miku Kasai ORCID Icon, Kensuke Kusama, Daiju Numata, Taku Nonomura ORCID Icon and Keisuke Asai
AIAA Journal, Vol. 60, Issue 9, published online 22 Jun 2022Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets (JSR) Articles
Optimal Planetary Surface Exploration with Heterogeneous Agents
By Euihyeon Choi and Jaemyung Ahn
Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets, Vol. 60, Issue 4, published online 21 May 2023Forum Technical Papers
Vision-Based Navigation for the NASA Mars Helicopter
By David S. Bayard, Dylan T. Conway, Roland Brockers, Jeff H. Delaune, Larry H. Matthies, Håvard F. Grip, Gene B. Merewether, Travis L. Brown and Alejandro M. San Martin
2019 AIAA SciTech Forum AIAA 2019-1411 (Best Paper)
https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2019-1411
Session: Intelligent/Autonomous Guidance and NavigationOptimization of Low Reynolds Number Airfoils for Martian Rotor Applications Using an Evolutionary Algorithm
By Witold J. Koning, Ethan A. Romander and Wayne Johnson
2020 AIAA SciTech Forum, AIAA 2020-0084
https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2020-0084 (Invited Paper)
Session: AIAA-JSASS Joint Session on Martian Aerodynamics (Invited)Three-Dimensional Blade and Hub Stresses of Coaxial Rotors in High-Speed Forward Flight
By Mrinalgouda Patil, Anubhav Datta and Buvana Jayaraman
2023 AIAA SciTech Forum, AIAA 2023-1892
https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2023-1892 (Best Paper)
Session: Aeromechanics of Rotorcraft and Vertical Lift Aircraft
For many more technical papers, please search
Multimedia Content
The ASCEND community hosted an exclusive briefing with members of the NASA mission’s science and technical team:
ASCENDxWebinar: Preview: NASA Perseverance Mars Arrival
The editorial team at Aerospace America published a podcast interview with the chief engineer on the program, NASA’s Bob Balaram: Creating Ingenuity
Mars Helicopter – NASA Mars
Highlights, Timeline, Quick Facts
Ingenuity Mars Helicopter 1:1 scale model at 2021 AIAA Awards Gala, Washington, DC
Håvard Grip, Chief Pilot and Flight Control Lead, Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, delivers NASA JPL William H. Pickering Lecture, 2021 ASCEND, Las Vegas, Nevada
On behalf of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Team, Håvard Grip receives 2021 AIAA Space Systems Award, “For the design and flight test validation of the first helicopter designed for flight at Mars,” from AIAA CEO Dan Dumbacher, 2021 ASCEND, Las Vegas, Nevada.
MiMi Aung, former Project Manager, Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, NASA, speaking during panel discussion, “Arrival: Persevering into the Future,” at 2021 ASCEND, Las Vegas, Nevada