Mars helicopter Ingenuity soars over Perseverance rover tracks on 41st flight
NASA’s tiny Ingenuity helicopter notched its 41st flight.
The Ingenuity drone produced a brief flight out from its resting cease and then back again on Jan. 27, covering 600 feet (183 meters) in horizontal length in just 109 seconds.
Soon after the dust settled in Jezero Crater, Ingenuity returned to its resting area at “Airfield Beta,” in accordance to the mission’s flight log (opens in new tab). A timelapse (opens in new tab) of imagery captured midflight exhibits the helicopter’s shadow dancing about sand dunes.
Relevant: Soar around Mars rover tracks with Ingenuity helicopter (video clip)
Ingenuity is the flying mission addition to NASA’s vehicle-sized Perseverance Mars rover. The rover touched down in February 2021 inside of of Jezero, which experienced a big ancient lake and river delta and is roughly 28 miles (45 kilometers) huge.
The rover has been busy by itself in new months during its search for indicators of ancient Mars life in the location, dropping off 10 sample tubes as of Monday (Jan. 30). This is a backup cache of materials, as Perseverance has twin samples from the many websites stashed in its belly. One particular of the established will be returned to Earth as early as 2033.
The prime strategy will activity Perseverance with ferrying the samples immediately to a NASA lander that would ferry the load to orbit. Failing that, two clean Ingenuity-style helicopters would provide as a relief team, nabbing samples on the floor for return on a joint NASA/European Area Agency marketing campaign.
Nevertheless the samples are brought into the lander, it would upcoming blast off to Mars orbit to meet up with a European probe. That spacecraft would deliver the samples back again to Earth. (Equally the Mars lander and the European probe are anticipated to launch in the mid- to late 2020s.)
Ingenuity’s 41st flight exceeds the engineering demonstration manifest by eightfold, as the helicopter was initially tasked with just five flights. Right before Ingenuity arrived, no human craft experienced at any time flown on Mars in the planet’s thin ambiance.
The prolonged mission has allowed Ingenuity to scout ahead for Perseverance, echoing how potential missions on Mars are anticipated to go. From the air, the helicopter lets experts to glimpse for attention-grabbing scientific targets or to locate the ideal route for Perseverance to select its way across Jezero’s cratered and rocky landscape.
Elizabeth Howell is the co-author of “Why Am I Taller (opens in new tab)?” (ECW Press, 2022 with Canadian astronaut Dave Williams), a guide about place medication. Follow her on Twitter @howellspace (opens in new tab). Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or Fb (opens in new tab).