National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA’s) Ingenuity Mars helicopter, designed by IIT Madras alumnus J (Bob) Balaram, made history on Monday by becoming the first powered and controlled flight on another planet.
The US space agency hailed the achievement as ‘our Wright brothers moment’. Bob Balaram, Ingenuity’s chief engineer, said the helicopter was in fine fettle following the maiden run.
“She’s even healthier than she was before this flight — she shook off some of her dust that had been covering the solar panels, and is in fact producing even more solar energy than before,” he said.
J Bob Balaram, the chief engineer behind the helicopter sent to Mars, is the principal member of technical staff at the Nasa Jet Propulsion Laboratory where he is with the Mobility and Robotic Systems section.
The four-pound (1.8 kilogram) rotorcraft lifted off at 3:34am Eastern Time (0734GMT), rose to a height of 10 feet (three meters), swayed in the Martian breeze and then touched down after 39.1 seconds. Data and images from the flight were transmitted 173 million miles (278 million kilometers) back to Earth where they were received by NASA. NASA originally planned the flight for April 11 but postponed it over a software glitch, which was later resolved.
Balaram, the recipient of two Nasa Awards and eight New Technology awards, has led design teams for developing Mars aerobot (aerial robot) perception systems, a deep-diving Venus balloon gondola concept, and balloon-carried imaging sondes for deployment at Venus, according to the space agency. He has worked with Nasa for 20 years. After IIT Madras, Balaram did MS, Computer and System Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Born in South India in the 1960s, J (Bob) Balaram was inspired by the Apollo Moon landings as he developed an interest in space exploration.
