It is supported by NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. The Ingenuity Mars Helicopter was built by JPL, which also manages the project for NASA Headquarters. Now that the rotorcraft is back in contact and getting adequate energy from its solar array to charge its six lithium-ion batteries, the team is looking forward to its next flight on Mars. Mission controllers recently lost communication with Ingenuity after the helicopter entered a low-power state. This enables Ingenuity to react to the landscape while carrying out its commands. During a flight, onboard sensors – the navigation camera, an inertial measurement unit, and a laser range finder – provide real-time data to Ingenuity’s navigation processor and main flight computer, which guide the helicopter in flight. “Pilots” at JPL plan them and send commands to the Perseverance Mars rover, which then relays those commands to the helicopter. This helps ensure any dust kicked up during takeoff and landing won’t interfere with the navigation system as it tracks features on the ground. The navigation camera has been programmed to deactivate whenever the rotorcraft is within 3 feet (1 meter) of the surface.
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The video of the 161.3-second flight was speeded up approximately five times, reducing it to less than 35 seconds. Finally, relatively flat and featureless terrain appears below, providing a good landing spot. The rotorcraft first flies over a group of sand ripples then, about halfway through the video, several rock fields. After reaching an altitude of 33 feet (10 meters), the helicopter heads southwest, accelerating to its maximum speed in less than three seconds. The first frame of the video clip begins about one second into the flight. “For our record-breaking flight, Ingenuity’s downward-looking navigation camera provided us with a breathtaking sense of what it would feel like gliding 33 feet above the surface of Mars at 12 miles per hour,” said Ingenuity team lead Teddy Tzanetos of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. (Ingenuity is currently preparing for its 29th flight.) Covering a distance of 2,310 feet (704 meters) at a speed of 12 mph (5.5 meters per second), it was the Red Planet rotorcraft’s longest and fastest flight to date. The Ingenuity Mars Helicopter’s black-and-white navigation camera has provided dramatic video of its record-breaking 25th flight, which took place on April 8. See the original version of this article on BGR.Imagery has come down from Mars capturing a recent flight in which the rotorcraft flew farther and faster than ever before. Memorial Day deals to shop on Apple, TVs, headphones are up to 70% offġ0 hidden Amazon deals only Prime members can get And Ingenuity’s tenacity to survive a near-death experience, as well as a more recent power scare this year, have proven that NASA’s engineering can hold up.Īll that’s left to do now is appreciate the Ingenuity’s continued breaking of flight records, and all that it can teach us about flying on other planets.īest Deals Today – Daily Deals & Sales: LIVE But, with drones like Ingenuity, we could get an even closer look using aircraft along the surface of the planet. NASA has a lot of big plans to look deeper into exoplanets using the James Webb space telescope. As such, getting an automated system up and running that can take off, and fly at considerable speeds and for long durations is vital to future exploration of Mars and other planets. Flight is one of the quickest ways to explore and travel. Part of what makes Ingenuity’s continued breaking of flight records so important is the part it plays in the future of planetary exploration. Of course, that doesn’t mean that Ingenuity isn’t important. While breaking the flight record is exciting, the real discoveries will come with Perseverance’s ongoing mission to learn about ancient life on Mars. Still, there really isn’t much to see from the camera that Ingenuity utilizes. The helicopter was designed to do this so that dust from the planet doesn’t interfere with the navigational system. But that’s because the navigation camera switches off when the helicopter gets within three feet of the surface. The video also doesn’t show the beginning or the end of the flight. The almost three-minute-long video has been sped up quite dramatically, lasting only 35 seconds in the video. However, NASA just recently shared footage of the Ingenuity’s latest flight record. Ingenuity has flown three more times since that day. The helicopter flew at 12MPH for the duration of the flight, crossing over 2,310 feet of the planet’s surface.
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While a milestone in and of itself, Ingenuity also broke two records during that flight.įirst, it broke its duration record, staying in the air for just over two minutes and 41 seconds. Back on April 8, 2022, NASA’s Mars Ingenuity took into the air for its 25th flight.