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The Mars Ingenuity Helicopter

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has taken flight.

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I just want to congratulate the team

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on an amazing, historic first.

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First controlled powered flight on another planet.

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Just truly amazing.

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Ingenuity landed with its mothership,

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Perseverance, in February 2021.

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This really is a Wright Brothers moment.

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{\an8}This morning our dream came true.

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And thus far

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is exceeding all expectations.

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The first flight of a powered aircraft

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on another planet.

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Drones have conquered the Earth and Mars.

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Next, there'll be heading out even further

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into our solar system.

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In 2027, NASA is planning to launch a one

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of a kind spacecraft.

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Dragonfly is a rotorcraft lander

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that's going to Saturn's moon, Titan,

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which is one of the most interesting places

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in the solar system, but I'm pretty biased.

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If all goes according to plan,

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Dragonfly will touch down in the 2030's

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and spend years exploring this exotic landscape.

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It's very cold there.

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It's minus 290 Fahrenheit,

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just above liquid nitrogen temperatures.

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And it's very distant from Earth.

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The mission could provide breakthroughs

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that could connect this frozen moon to Earth's past.

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What we learn from Dragonfly

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on Titan could potentially inform missions

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to other ocean worlds in the solar system.

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But first it has

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to survive a billion mile journey,

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a cryogenic atmosphere, and a two hour descent,

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and that's just getting there.

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(tense music)

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Ingenuity, part of the current Mars Perseverance mission,

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has successfully completed its initial test flight.

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This really is a Wright brothers moment.

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{\an8}It's the start of a whole new kind of planetary exploration

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and we'll build on Ingenuity's success

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to see how we can deploy this capability

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on future Mars missions.

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And returning these amazing vistas.

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It did it just perfectly.

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We really did leave the ground.

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Each step of the Ingenuity mission is critical

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to proving a self-sufficient drone

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can explore other planets.

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Washplate turbos appear healthy,

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overall actuators appear healthy.

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This is flight control confirming

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that we have EVR's from Ingenuity.

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{\an8}When things work, it looks easy.

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{\an8}I would like to take this opportunity

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{\an8}to remind how difficult it is to fly a rotorcraft at Mars.

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The initial flight lasted 20 to 30 seconds

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and consisted of Ingenuity hovering

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at a small altitude above the surface.

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Having performed spin up, take off, climb,

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hover, descent, landing, touchdown, and spindown.

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(all clapping)

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{\an8}Ingenuity itself is extremely healthy at this point,

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all in all it's in a perfect state,

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and I'm just really excited to see what all she

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can teach us over the next few weeks

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as we explore area mobility on Mars.

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With each subsequent flight,

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the engineers collect more data

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to help push the chopper further,

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in both distance and duration.

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{\an8}Just in general terms what you're talking about here

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{\an8}is going higher, going further, going faster.

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Especially towards the end

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of the experimental window,

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we will be pushing the envelope and really stretching

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and understanding how well we can fly.

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Ingenuity has marked the beginning

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of other worldly flight.

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{\an8}Ingenuity is a technology demonstration,

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{\an8}but it's a very important one for Dragonfly.

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{\an8}It's the first extra terrestrial rotorcraft,

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and we've all been watching, hoping that it will succeed.

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And we're very happy with the success that it's had so far.

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And it's a precursor

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to NASA's most ambitious mission yet, Titan,

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where the thick atmosphere allows

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for a much larger craft.

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Dragonfly's rotors will spin at about 800 RPM.

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Whereas Ingenuity is rotors spin at about 2,500 RPM.

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While there are less distant places to visit

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in our solar system, Titan has the most going for it.

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It's because Titan is so Earth-like

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and so alien at the same time,

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that it makes a fantastic target to study,

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just as an explorer.

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Although the destinations

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are remarkably different,

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Mars ingenuity proves a rotorcraft

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can not only survive the journey,

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but thrive in its objective.

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We don't have drones that, you know,

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survive minus 130 degrees Fahrenheit at night.

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We don't have drones that fly

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in 1% of the atmosphere of Earth.

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This technological Marvel

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is no off the shelf drone.

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I think everybody's seen a drone flying around

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all these little multirotor copters,

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especially quad copters, people watch,

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but Dragonfly's on a different scale.

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It's very large.

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The rotors are 53 inches in diameter.

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{\an8}The lander itself weighs close to a ton.

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{\an8}So it's very big.

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{\an8}It's the size of a Mini Cooper, on that order.

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A rotorcraft is the very best way to explore Titan

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because it allows us to both do pinpoint landings

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and inspection, and also cover large distances

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to be able to see vastly different locations on the surface.

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Very different terrain, very different science objectives.

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Titan's atmosphere enables engineers

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to make Dragonfly 500 times more massive

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and fly almost 50 times further than it's Mars counterpart.

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So it's actually much easier to fly on Titan

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than it is on Earth.

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Some place like Mars,

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{\an8}which Mars has a very thin atmosphere.

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{\an8}So it's actually much harder to fly

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on Mars than it will be on Titan.

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Titan has a thick enough atmosphere and low enough gravity

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that a person could basically strap on some wings

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and flap around on Titan, kind of almost like a bird.

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So on Titan, the challenge isn't flying, flying is easy.

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The challenge is the environment.

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It's very cold there, it's minus 290 Fahrenheit

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just above liquid nitrogen temperatures,

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and it's very distant from Earth.

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So that means that it takes a long time

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for us to send commands

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and receive data from the Lander.

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With Ingenuity NASA is able

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to give direct commands to the drone

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and even update software via an orbiting spacecraft.

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Dragonfly will have no such luxuries.

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It's incrementally autonomous.

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It executes sequences that we tell it to execute

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and it does them autonomously

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because there's no way to communicate

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with the Lander real time.

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But it does not execute the whole mission autonomously.

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There's a over an hour communication delay

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between Earth and Titan.

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The Lander will need to essentially fly itself down

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on its very first flight to a world

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that we don't have very many images.

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The images they do have are courtesy

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of Huygens, a probe dropped off on Titan

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in 2005 by the Cassini spacecraft.

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What Huygens revealed during its mission helped

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prepare the scientists for what to expect.

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{\an8}We look at these landforms, these pictures from Cassini

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{\an8}and say, yes, those are clearly dunes that we're looking at.

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On Titan, these sand grains are made up

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of some bizarre organics that only Dragonfly

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is going to be able to tell us

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what they're actually made of.

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One element Cassini did confirm was

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that Titan is ideal for a rotorcraft mission.

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Titan atmosphere is 10 times thicker

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and 300 times denser than the Martian atmosphere.

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But what that does for us is it creates a special challenge.

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On Mars it only takes seven minutes

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to get through the atmosphere,

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whereas it takes us two and a half hours

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to descend through that atmosphere.

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Dragonfly is scheduled to launch

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in 2027 and travel roughly a billion miles

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before reaching Titan.

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Such an epic journey requires a special power supply.

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One of the enabling technologies

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that we're planning to use on Dragonfly

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is a multi-mission radio isotope thermal electric generator,

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{\an8}or an MMRTG.

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{\an8}And the way that works is it uses the decay

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{\an8}of plutonium 238 to generate heat,

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{\an8}and from that heat, we generate electricity,

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{\an8}and we use both the heat to keep the Lander warm,

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{\an8}and the electricity to power the Lander

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on the surface of Titan.

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Power that will be used

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to run cutting edge experiments.

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One of the pieces of data that I'm most excited

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to get back down on the ground

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are the data from the gamma ray and neutron spectrometer.

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It's a mouthful, but the power of this instrument

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is that it's going to look beneath the surface

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and tell us if there are sediments

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beneath where we're actually sampling with the drill.

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Every piece of data collection is critical

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to this and future missions.

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Dragonfly will adapt its mission as it goes.

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And what we have to do here on Earth

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is provide the steps that the Lander

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will take to do that, and then rely

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on the Lander's autonomy to execute those steps,

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and make the appropriate decisions

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when the situation calls for it.

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Mars' Ingenuity and Dragonfly

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are just the beginning.

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If the two drones perform well,

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space choppers could soon begin leaving Earth

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in relatively large numbers.

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It's the start of a whole new kind

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of planetary exploration

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and we'll build on Ingenuity's success

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to see how we can deploy this capability

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on future Mars missions.

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Dragonfly will be able to fly

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into dozens of promising locations on Titan.

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This longevity will greatly aid Dragonfly's search

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for prebiotic chemicals, common on both Titan and Earth.

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One of the reasons we want to study Titan's ice crust is

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because it covers a subsurface ocean,

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an ocean of liquid water.

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And we know that there are organics on Titan's surface.

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So if there's any possibility of moving those organics

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that we're going to sample with Dragonfly down

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through the ice crust, to the subsurface ocean,

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then we start to talk about another realm

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of possible habitability on Titan.

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During its nearly three year mission,

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Dragonfly will explore diverse environments

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from organic dunes to the floor of an impact crater,

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where liquid water once existed.

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We want to know more about the history of Titan

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because the evolution of Titan may hold clues

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to our own past.

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We think that before biology really took

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over here on the Earth,

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it might've had an atmosphere that was kind of hazy,

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similar to Titan's today.

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And the production of that haze might've been

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what helped seed wherever life really took off.

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What we learn from Dragonfly

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on Titan could potentially inform missions

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to other ocean worlds in the solar system.

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In space exploration there are always questions

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that we don't even know to ask yet,

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and Titan might tell us what some of those questions are.

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Meanwhile, back on Mars, Ingenuity continues

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to capture the hearts of explorers everywhere.

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Passing its first battery of flight tests

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with flying colors and paving the way

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for future flying machines on other planets.

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(dramatic music)