Important Innovations

   World Aviation History is Made                               Source:  NASA - Ingenuity 1st Image First Helicopter That Flew on Another Planet NASA's Ingenuity Mars helicopter has succeeded in achieving the first powered, controlled flight on another planet.  It used its navigation camera, which autonomously tracks the ground beneath Ingenuity during flight, to take its first black and white image from the air.  The small rotocraft has made world history with its first flight.  It is part of a long series of NASA achievements that were thought to be technologically impossible. First Flight Ingenuity is solar-powered.  During its first flight, it reached a height of ten feet and hovered steadily for thirty seconds before landing smoothly back on Mars after 39.1 seconds of flight.  The flight test was totally autonomous.  Because of Mars' nearly 200 million mile distance from Earth, NASA can not control Ingenuity with a joystick.  Ingenuity's flight was powered and piloted

Tiny Rovers, Tiny Payloads, Tiny Instruments Source:  NASA Big Science: NASA Wants Your Ideas NASA has plans to send tiny robotic rovers to the Moon.  In order to do this, NASA needs to develop miniature scientific payloads for the tiny rovers.  NASA is formally asking the public for their ideas. Game Changing Science This is not fun and games. NASA expects the winning ideas that come through this public process  will be game changing  They believe the smaller payloads will result in a series of miniaturized instruments and sensors that can quickly be used for lunar exploration and for harvesting the resources  found there. Crowdsourcing NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab has launched a crowdsourcing project on HeroX.  It's called "Honey, I shrunk the NASA payload".  Specifically, NASA is looking for small instrument design concepts to sustain human life on the Moon and also to use the resources found there. Prize Money The ins