Mars’ atmosphere is 100 times thinner than Earth’s, so flying near the surface of the planet is equivalent to flying at around 100,000 feet on Earth, a feat no helicopter has attempted.
https://www.insidescience.org/news/how-fly-helicopter-mars
Highest helicopter ~40k ft.
Blade speed on the Mars drone is 2,800 rpm. That is about the same as a normal RC helicopter. Wouldn't the blades have to be much bigger or spin much faster to make up for 100X less air density? The Mars drone weighs about 1.5 lbs on Mars which is almost the same as a small RC helicopter.
https://www.rchelicopterfun.com/trex-450-plus.html
There might be a good explanation for this but I haven't heard it yet.
The difference is that Ingenuity's blades are much bigger.
Ingenuity is just 19 inches high, has blades 4ft in diameter and can run its rotas at 2,500 rpm (4 times what's needed on earth).
100k ft. is pretty high. Why hasn't someone just made a helicopter with really big blades and go fly over an SR-71?
https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/columnist/cox/2017/05/28/altitude/102185856/
Weather balloons pop at about 123k ft.
It just doesn't seem like there is enough atmosphere at 100k ft. I guess big blades is a good enough answer for now.
They did test Ingenuity in one of the largest vacuum chamber. That's how they were able to tweak its design to make sure it would work on Mars.
Their main concern was keeping its controller system warm enough, especially at night.
That's what consumes the most energy (from the batteries) and that's why it can only fly 90 seconds per day in between solar powered charges.
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