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Meet Bob Balaram, the man behind Nasa's Ingenuity Mars helicopter

Nasa's ambitious miniature robot helicopter Ingenuity took flight above the dusty surface of Mars on Monday, making it the first powered flight on another planet. Significantly, Indian-origin engineer Bob Balaram is the man behind Ingenuity. He has worked with Nasa for 20 years.

Bob Balaram, who is an IIT-Madras alumnus from the 1975-80 batch, is Ingenuity's chief engineer. He studied B.Tech, Mechanical Engineering at the prestigious institute.

After IIT-Madras, Bob Balaram did his MS, Computer and System Engineering from America's oldest technological research university Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and also completed his PhD from the institute.

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