Flying

NASA’s Mars helicopter Ingenuity to keep flying through September (at least)

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Ingenuity‘s flying days have been extended once again. The miniature Martian chopper now has clearance to continue flying until at least September, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) announced today (March 15). As part of this extension, Ingenuity will also sport some special upgrades that will allow the 4-pound (1.8 kilograms) drone to do even more … Read more

Millions of Palm-Sized, Flying Spiders Could Invade the East Coast

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New research, published Feb. 17 in the journal Physiological Entomology, suggests that the palm-sized Joro spider, which swarmed North Georgia by the millions last September, has a special resilience to the cold. This has led scientists to suggest that the 3-inch (7.6 centimeters) bright-yellow-striped spiders — whose hatchlings disperse by fashioning web parachutes to fly … Read more

Virgin Galactic plans to start flying paying customers this year

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Virgin Galactic’s suborbital spaceliner is grounded at the moment, but the company is confident it’ll be fully up and running by the end of the year. Virgin Galactic flies people and payloads to suborbital space using an air-launch strategy: A carrier plane called VMS Eve drops the six-passenger, two-pilot VSS Unity space plane at an … Read more

Drones: Giving small flying craft barn owl-like tails may make them more efficient flyers

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The barn owl’s tail has a surprisingly important role to play in making the bird more aerodynamic Physics 9 February 2022 By Christa Lesté-Lasserre A barn owl in flight Javier Fernandez Sanchez/Getty Images The barn owl’s tail plays an unexpected role in flight by making the bird more aerodynamic, which may have implications for drone … Read more

Flying robot generates as much power as a flapping insect

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A flying robot with wings controlled by a magnetic field instead of heavy motors and gears slightly outperforms insect muscles Technology 2 February 2022 By Alex Wilkins A small robot with wings like an insect can fly and generate more power than a similarly-sized animal in nature. Most flying robots, whether they use wings or … Read more

The Largest Known Flying Animal Was Even Weirder Than We Thought

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The pterosaur Quetzalcoatlus northropi is the largest known flying animal to have ever existed, living on Earth more than 67 million years ago. Now new research on the creature and its newly discovered smaller relative, Quetzalcoatlus lawsoni, gives us a better idea of how Q. northropi flew and got airborne to begin with.   Our knowledge of Q. … Read more

MIT Scientists Design a ‘Flying Saucer’ That Could Float Across The Moon

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Researchers have imagined a lightweight, flying saucer-style rover that can float across the surface of the Moon and other airless planetary surfaces such as asteroids. The ‘flying saucer’ would be powered by the electric field that builds up due to direct exposure to the Sun and its surrounding plasma. In the absence of an atmosphere, this … Read more