NASA ’s Mars helicopter has now completed an impressive 71 flights on the red satellite sinceits first hover there in April 2021 .
While most of the flights have film billet without any difficulties , the late one was ignore short after ingeniousness ’s navigation arrangement found it unmanageable to make do with the “ relatively featureless terrain , ” which consist of “ sand ripples with few or no rocks , ” according to a societal media post by NASA ’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory , which is overseeing the mission .
Ingenuity completed Flight 71 !
The#MarsHelicopterlanded successfully , but originally than gestate . The relatively featureless terrain it flew over ( sand ripple with few or no rocks ) testify to be a challenge for its navigation scheme . See the stats : https://t.co/1CXIWdYIAQpic.twitter.com / RaCmAgON34
& mdash ; NASA JPL ( @NASAJPL)January 10 , 2024
During Saturday ’s flight , Ingenuity had been anticipate to travel a distance of just over 1,175 substructure ( 358 meter ) , but in the event , it only flew 233 understructure ( 71 meters ) — about a third of the planned path — before touching down .
This meant that the flying , which did achieve the expected ALT of 39.4 metrical unit ( 12 meters ) and upper of 15.7 mph ( 7 meters per second ) , only lasted 35 seconds instead of the expected 125 seconds .
cleverness ’s downwardly - look camera use the terrain to assist it make its means to the destine landing place blot , but it appears to have become befuddled by the want of landmarks along the route . It ’s a full lesson for the JPL team , which will belike now be engaged in improving the onboard sailing system to shell out with featureless terrain more effectively .
The good news is that inventiveness appears to have stayed airless to its planned flight path and that it landed safely .
It ’s not the first challenge that the helicopter has had to overcome . A software issueprior to its fourth flightin 2021 , for deterrent example , prevented its rotors from spinning , leaving it grounded until a fix was transmitted to the aircraft from the team on Earth .
grant to JPL ’s information , the chopper , which is the only aircraft to have performed power , controlled flight on a planet other than Earth , has now traveled a full aloofness of 11 knot ( near 18 kilometer ) and stayed in the air for a sum of 128.3 minutes . Ingenuity ’s record flight speed to day of the month is 22.4 miles per hour ( 10 meters per second ) , and its criminal record altitude is 78.8 feet ( 24 meters ) .
The helicopter arrived on Mars as a technology presentation , but its flights have been so successful that it cease up assist NASA ’s Perseverance bird of passage by bewitch mental imagery of the terrain to help charge planners select the best route for the roulette wheel - based rover as it exploresMars ’ Jezero Craterfor signs of ancient microbial life .
