NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Flies Faster, Farther on Third Flight

The craft’s April 25 flight was conducted at speeds and distances beyond what had ever been previously demonstrated, even in testing on Earth.

NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter continues to set records, flying faster and farther on Sunday, April 25, 2021 than in any tests it went through on Earth. The helicopter took off at 1:31 a.m. EDT (4:31 a.m. PDT), or 12:33 p.m. local Mars time, rising 16 feet (5 meters) – the same altitude as its second flight. Then it zipped downrange 164 feet (50 meters), almost half the length of a football field, reaching a top speed of 6.6 feet per second (2 meters per second).


www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-ingenuity-mars-helicopter-flies-faster-farther-on-third-flight?utm_source=iContact&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nasajpl&utm_content=daily20210425-1

Perseverance rover photographed from the Ingenuity helicopter.

This is just too cool for words.

"The four pound (1.8 kilogram) mini chopper successfully performed the fourth of its five originally planned flights on Friday, "going farther & faster than ever before," NASA tweeted.

The fifth is planned in the coming days, then its mission will be extended, initially by one Martian month.

Whether it continues beyond that will depend on if it's still in good shape and if it's helping, rather than hindering, the rover's goals of collecting soil and rock samples for future lab analysis on Earth.

Chief engineer Bob Balaram predicted a limiting factor will be its ability to withstand the frigid Mars nights, where temperatures plunge to -130 degrees Fahrenheit (-90 degrees Celsius).

Ingenuity keeps warm with a solar-powered heater, but it was only designed to last for a month and engineers aren't sure "how many freeze and thaw cycles (it) can go through before something breaks," he said.

NASA initially thought Perseverance would soon be driving away from the site where it landed at the Jezero Crater on February 18, just north of the planet's equator.

That would have meant the rover leaving Ingenuity behind and moving beyond communications range.

Now though, the agency wants to keep Perseverance in the area for some time after finding a rocky outcrop that they believe contains some of the oldest material on the crater floor.

They hope to collect their first sample in July.

Ingenuity's exploits have captured the public's imagination since it made its first flight on April 19, but NASA said this wasn't a factor in its decision to allow the two robots to keep exploring Mars together."


phys.org/news/2021-04-mars-helicopter-4th-flight-extra.html?utm_source=nwletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=weekly-nwletter

Absolutely nothing to do with both the Russians, and the Chinese, announcing the building of new space stations now that the ISS is starting to fall apart, and the mooted new lunar space station that they intend to build together. 

www.nasaspaceflight.com/2021/04/roscosmos-future-for-mid-2020s/

www.globaltimes.cn/page/202104/1222443.shtml

At least we've got the music.

"The six-wheeled scientist is heading south to explore Jezero Crater’s lakebed in search of signs of ancient microbial life.

During the first few weeks of this first science campaign, the mission team will drive to a low-lying scenic overlook from which the rover can survey some of the oldest geologic features in Jezero Crater, and they’ll bring online the final capabilities of the rover’s auto-navigation and sampling systems."

www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-perseverance-rover-begins-its-first-science-campaign-on-mars?utm_source=iContact&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nasajpl&utm_content=daily20210609-2

I love the laser pits.

Ingenuity helicopter Flight 9

scitechdaily.com/nail-biter-ingenuity-mars-helicopters-latest-flight-was-a-major-challenge/