NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, the first aircraft to achieve powered flight on another planet, is now the first drone to fly on a parade float — in the form of a flower-covered replica.
The floral-but-flight-worthy display was just one of the highlights aboard “Rover Rendezvous,” a float in the Tournament of Roses Parade held in celebration of New Year’s Day in Pasadena, California on Wednesday (Jan. 1). Designed in part to celebrate the achievements of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), the float was built by the City of La Cañada Flintridge, where the NASA and Caltech facility is located.
“This out-of-this-world float invites viewers on a journey to Mars, featuring an astronaut who teams up with an alien exploration crew for a thrilling ride in a modified Mars rover,” read La Cañada Flintridge’s description of its parade entry. “With all elements crafted by dedicated volunteers, this float represents the community’s creativity and passion for innovation.”
Covered in more than 35,000 flowers, the 55-foot-long (17-m) float featured an Ingenuity-like rotorcraft at its front and a six-wheeled rover made to look like it had been built using components from NASA’s two robots active on Mars, Curiosity and Perseverance. For example, the rover on the float is leaving behind the same wheel tracks as Curiosity — imprinting “JPL” in Morse code in the “Martian soil.”
The float was also decorated with “floralgraph” mission patches, including the emblems for NASA’s Viking, Pathfinder and Perseverance (Mars 2020) missions, as rendered using flowers.
The float’s Mars Helicopter took flight at the control of two drone pilots who were on board (the drone was also tethered for safety precautions). Earl Cox, chief engineer for communications and system engineering at AeroViornment, helped bring the “ingenious” exhibi to life, just as the company did for the real Ingenuity.
“It’s just fun to pull everything together and something we can show to everybody, [since] the Mars helicopter is a million miles away,” Cox said in an interview with the local newspaper, Outlook Valley Sun. “This is a great opportunity to showcase Mars exploration.”
Ingenuity on Mars flew a total of 72 times before crashing and suffering damage in January 2024, 22 months after its history-making first flight. While it was active, it went from serving as a technology demonstrator to supporting the science mission of the on-going Perseverance rover by scouting the landscape ahead from above.
The inclusion of fantastical alien visitors was inspired by this year’s theme for the parade, “Best Day Ever.” The float continues the story that began on La Cañada’s 2017 entry, which depicted a young boy building a rocket in his backyard.
“We thought it’d be very clever to have our little intrepid astronaut make it to Mars, upon which he sees a rover and meets an alien, and they have a fun ride,” Ernest Koeppen, president of the La Cañada Flintridge Tournament of Roses Association, told the Outlook Valley Sun. “Seems to me, that’d be the best day ever.”
“Rover Rendevous” was also the “greenest” float in the parade, swapping out its propane-powered animation engine and hydraulics with a full EV battery controlled motor and generator.
One other float looked toward outer space to represent this year’s parade theme. “Chasing Our Dreams” from Odd Fellows & Rebekahs, a sororal and service organization, featured an astronaut riding a rocket along a rainbow-colored path above Earth, past Mars and Saturn and towards the stars. Built by the Phoenix Decorating Company, the float was adorned with 59,600 flowers, including yellow and white starburst mums.
Previous years’ Tournament of Roses Parades have celebrated space exploration history, including a flower-formed model of space shuttle Endeavour in 2013 and the inclusion of a space-flown rose in 2009. JPL has also represented itself in past Rose Parades, designing floats that depicted its Viking Mars lander in 1976 and the Spitzer Space Telescope with eight other spacecraft to form a giant Voltron-like robot in 2005.
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