NASA has announced that it has powered up its Mars helicopter, Ingenuity. The helicopter was launched as part of the Mars July 2020 mission that will eventually fly in the Martian sky.

NASA had announced on 13th August that it had successfully recharged the helicopter in mid-spaceflight. The helicopter is at the moment on its journey to space tucked into the belly of the Perseverance rover.

The powering and charging process took about eight hours. The Ingenuity helicopter uses lithium-ion batteries which the team recharged to 35%.

Also read:
– UAE Successfully Launches Its First Mars Bound Spacecraft, Hope
– NASA Offers $35,000 To Anyone Who Can Design A Toilet For The Moon
– NASA Is Changing Racist Nicknames Of Celestial Bodies

The team will recharge the helicopter repeatedly before it gets to Mars. Its mothership, Perseverance, is on schedule to reach Mars by February 2021.

“This was a big milestone, as it was our first opportunity to turn on Ingenuity and give its electronics a ‘test drive’ since we launched on July 30. Since everything went by the book, we’ll perform the same activity about every two weeks to maintain an acceptable state of charge,” said Tim Canham, the operations lead for Mars Helicopter at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.

Nobody honestly knows how Ingenuity will perform on Mars, however, from all the indications, all seems to be well.

“We have a lot more firsts to go before we can attempt the first experimental flight test on another planet, but right now we are all feeling very good about the future,” said MiMi Aung, Ingenuity project manager at JPL.

For your daily dose of tech, lifestyle, and trending content, make sure to follow Plat4om on Twitter @Plat4omLive, on Instagram @Plat4om, on LinkedIn at Plat4om, and on Facebook at Plat4om. You can also email us at info@techtalkwithtdafrica.com and join our channel on Telegram at Plat4om. Finally, don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel HERE.