NASA’s miniature robot helicopter Ingenuity made history by performing a successful takeoff and landing on Mars, achieving the first powered, controlled flight by an aircraft over the surface of another planet. The success of this new experiment could pave the way for new modes of exploration on Mars and other destinations in the solar system, such as Venus and Saturn’s moon Titan.
The United Arab Emirates will make history on Wednesday by becoming the first Arab nation to send an interplanetary mission to Mars. “Hope” — or Al-Amal in Arabic — is expected to reach Mars’s orbit by February 2021, marking the 50th anniversary of unification of United Arab Emirates, an alliance of seven sheikhdoms. The UAE’s Mars probe will not land on the Red Planet.