NASA’s small helicopter Ingenuity has completed its 41st flight.
of Originality and ingenuity The drone flew quickly from a pause on January 27 and back again. It covered a horizontal distance of 600 feet (183 meters) in just 109 seconds.
After the dust settled in Jezero Crater, the Ingenuity reportedly returned to its resting area at Airfield Beta. mission flight log (opens in new tab). Ah time lapse (opens in new tab) One of the images taken during the flight shows the helicopter’s shadow dancing over the dunes.
Related: Ingenuity Helicopter Flying Over Mars Rover Orbit (Video)
The ingenuity is the addition of NASA’s car-sized flight missions. Perseverance Mars Rover. The rover will land in February 2021 inside Jezero, a giant ancient lake and river delta about 45 km wide.
Rover has been busy in recent weeks looking for ancient tracks Mars life In the area, get off 10 sample tubes As of Monday (January 30). This is a backup cache of material. Perseverance has twin samples from various sites hidden in its belly.one of the sets is returned to earth 2033 at the earliest.
The primary plan is to task Perseverance with delivering samples directly to NASA’s lander, from where it will deliver cargo to orbit. Failing that, two new Ingenuity-type helicopters will act as a rescue team, collecting samples on the surface to return to the joint NASA-European Space Agency campaign.
However, the sample is brought to the lander and then blown up. Mars Go into orbit to meet with a European probe. The spacecraft will bring the samples back to Earth. (Both the Mars lander and the European rover are scheduled to launch in the mid-to-late 2020s.)
Ingenuity’s 41st flight is eight times more than the tech demonstration manifesto, as the helicopter was originally tasked with five flights. Humans had never flown on Mars until the arrival of the Ingenuity. thin atmosphere of a planet.
The expanded mission will allow Ingenuity to scout Perseverance ahead, reflecting how future missions on Mars are expected to proceed. Using helicopters from the air, scientists can search for interesting scientific targets or find the best routes for Perseverance to traverse Jezero’s craters and rocky landscapes.
Elizabeth Howell is co-author ofwhy am i tall (opens in new tab)?” (ECW Press, 2022, co-authored with Canadian astronaut Dave Williams), a book on space medicine. Follow her on Twitter. @Howell Space (opens in new tab)Follow us on Twitter @space.com (opens in new tab) Also Facebook (opens in new tab).
