--- title: "New Vid Shows NASA’s Mars Helicopter Kicking Up Dust During Flight" description: "In the process of lifting off from the Martian surface, NASA's Ingenuity Mars helicopter kicked up a real storm, as a new video shows." date: "2021-04-21" modified: "2021-04-21" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/new-video-nasa-mars-helicopter-dust" categories: - "Astronomy" - "Mars" - "NASA" - "Space" tags: - "ingenuity" - "JPL" - "mars" - "mars helicopter" - "NASA" - "the digest" --- # New Vid Shows NASA’s Mars Helicopter Kicking Up Dust During Flight ![In the process of lifting off from the Martian surface, NASA's Ingenuity Mars helicopter kicked up a real storm, as a new video shows.]() *\Image: NASA\* ## Dust Cloud NASA's Mars helicopter [Ingenuity]() pulled off a [tremendous feat on Monday](), becoming the first aircraft to perform a controlled flight off the surface of another planet. The little helicopter reached a height of ten feet for roughly 30 seconds, before safely returning to the rocky surface below. NASA's car-sized Perseverance rover filmed the spectacle from several hundred feet away. In the process, the "little rotorcraft that could," as NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) [dubbed it](), kicked up a real storm. Now, a video uploaded by the lab shows a Martian dust being kicked up by the dust devil's twin blades, which spin at a breakneck 2,400 revolutions per minute. https://twitter.com/NASAJPL/status/1384680147048046595 ## Not Kansas Thanks to the Red Planet's thin atmosphere, Ingenuity has to work overtime to generate enough lift. "Dust in the Wind… on Mars," reads a [Tuesday tweet](). "These enhanced side-by-side videos from Perseverance's Mastcam-Z reveal plumes from Mars Helicopter upon takeoff and landing." The plumes could "helps us better understand the Martian wind, and how dust travels through the Red Planet’s atmosphere," JPL wrote. Now that Ingenuity has successfully completed its first flight — the rotorcraft is [in even healthier condition](), NASA says, now that it has kicked a layer of dust off its solar panels — the JPL team is now looking forward to the helicopter's next couple of flights. ## Next Flight The team is planning to push the envelope with "increasingly difficult" flights, according to Principal investigator MiMi Aung, who spoke elatedly at a press conference following the historic flight on Monday. "We are going to continually push all the way to the limit of this rotocraft," Aung added. **READ MORE:** [Watch NASA's Mars helicopter Ingenuity kick up dust on its 1st flight (video)]() \[*Space.com*\] **More on Ingenuity:** *[NASA Says Mars Helicopter Is Now Healthier Than It Was Before Flight]()* ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()