Ahmad Awais – a Pakistani engineer is being lauded for his notable contribution to NASA’s Mars 2020 helicopter mission.
Awais is an award winning open-source engineer who played a key role in coding pertaining to the software requirement of NASA’s Mars 2020 helicopter mission.
US Embassy in Islamabad, took to social media to praise Ahmad Awais as he provided code for the software used on NASA’s ingenuity Helicopter.
Pakistani developers are truly making their mark in the world. #DidYouKnow Ahmad Awais (@MrAhmadAwais), a Pakistani award-winning open-source engineer, contributed code to the software for the Mars 2020 helicopter mission, also known as NASA’s Ingenuity Helicopter? pic.twitter.com/RD3nDUY3Ig
— U.S. Embassy Islamabad (@usembislamabad) May 17, 2021
What Is NASA’s ‘Ingenuity’ Mars Helicopter?
The Mars Helicopter, Ingenuity, is a technology demonstration to test powered, controlled flight on another world for the first time. It hitched a ride to Mars on the Perseverance rover. Once the rover reached a suitable “airfield” location, it released Ingenuity to the surface so it could perform a series of test flights over a 30-Martian-day experimental window.
The helicopter completed its technology demonstration after three successful flights. For the first flight on April 19, 2021, Ingenuity took off, climbed to about 10 feet (3 meters) above the ground, hovered in the air briefly, completed a turn, and then landed. It was a major milestone: the very first powered, controlled flight in the extremely thin atmosphere of Mars, and, in fact, the first such flight in any world beyond Earth. After that, the helicopter successfully performed additional experimental flights of incrementally farther distance and greater altitude.
With its tech demo complete, Ingenuity transitions to a new operations demonstration phase to explore how future rovers and aerial explorers can work together.
