NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter flew for the thirty seventh time on Saturday (Dec. 17), acing a hop designed partly to check the capabilities of its new software program.
Ingenuity stayed aloft for 55 seconds and lined 203 ft (62 meters) of Purple Planet floor on the flight, which was its third this month.
The primary objectives of Saturday’s sortie have been for Ingenuity “to reposition itself and check new flight software program capabilities,” officers with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, which manages Ingenuity’s mission, said via Twitter (opens in new tab) on Monday (Dec. 19).
Associated: Soar over Mars rover tracks with Ingenuity helicopter (video)
That new software program, which was put in final month, permits Ingenuity to keep away from hazards throughout touchdown and to make use of digital elevation maps for navigation functions, mission crew members have said (opens in new tab).
The rotorcraft landed on the ground of the Purple Planet’s Jezero Crater in February 2021 with NASA’s Perseverance rover, which is looking for indicators of previous Mars life and accumulating samples for future return to Earth.
Ingenuity’s main mission was to indicate that aerial exploration is feasible on Mars regardless of its thin atmosphere, which is simply 1% as dense as that of Earth at sea degree. The helicopter wrapped up that job over the course of 5 flights within the spring of 2021, then transitioned to an prolonged mission on which it is serving as a scout for Perseverance.
Ingenuity has now traveled a total of 24,867 ft (7,479 m) and stayed airborne for almost 62 minutes throughout its 37 Purple Planet flights, in line with the mission’s flight log (opens in new tab). These numbers ought to proceed to extend for some time, for the chopper stays in good well being, crew members have mentioned.
Ingenuity’s success is paving the best way for future rotorcraft missions to the Purple Planet. JPL is creating ideas for bigger, extra formidable Mars helicopters that would gather science data, for instance. And NASA plans to launch two Ingenuity-like craft to the Purple Planet later within the 2020s to assist convey Perseverance’s samples dwelling to Earth.
The baseline plan for the Mars sample-return marketing campaign requires Perseverance to ship its samples to a rocket-equipped lander. That rocket will launch the samples to Mars orbit, the place a European spacecraft will snag them and haul them to Earth, maybe as early as 2033.
The helicopters will fly on the lander as a backup: If Perseverance is not capable of ship the samples itself, the choppers will ferry them to the lander from depots on Jezero’s floor. (Perseverance is taking two samples from every of its goal rocks; it can retailer one set of samples on its physique and cache the opposite set in depots.)
Mike Wall is the creator of “Out There (opens in new tab)” (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a guide in regards to the seek for alien life. Comply with him on Twitter @michaeldwall (opens in new tab). Comply with us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) and on Facebook (opens in new tab).
