NASA’s tenacious drone sweeps over Mars in farthest flight but

The little Martian helicopter-that-could has accomplished it once more.

Ingenuity, a small 4-pound robotic scout that hitched a journey to the Crimson Planet final yr, has lately despatched again video documentation of its farthest and quickest flight but. On April 8, it traveled 2,310 ft — a bit lower than half a mile — at 12 mph.

The helicopter’s black-and-white navigation digicam caught the tour, exhibiting a uncommon, chook’s eye view of the Martian terrain. Ingenuity’s digicam is downward-facing, providing a “breathtaking sense of what it might really feel like gliding 33 ft above the floor of Mars,” mentioned NASA Ingenuity crew chief Teddy Tzanetos in a press release.

Within the video, Ingenuity soars by means of Mars’ skinny environment over rippling sand, then halfway by means of the journey, the panorama modifications to disparate rocky fields. The helicopter finally flies over a flat space, the place it drops down for a clean touchdown.

The entire record-breaking feat lasted slightly over 2.5 minutes, however that is for much longer than its first flight of 39 seconds within the spring of 2021. NASA elevated the brand new video’s pace fivefold, lowering its runtime to lower than 35 seconds.

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Ingenuity’s autonomous flights 300 million miles from Earth are programmed by engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. These plans are despatched as instructions to the car-size Perseverance Mars rover, which then relays them to the helicopter. Whereas Ingenuity flies, sensors onboard the plane react to the panorama to assist information it.

The helicopter has wildly outperformed NASA’s expectations. Engineers needed to show they may fly a drone on Mars. Now, Ingenuity has flown no less than 28 instances whereas exploring the desertlike planet.

Mission management lately misplaced contact with Ingenuity whereas the helicopter went right into a power-conserving mode. Communication was restored after its photo voltaic panels recharged the plane’s six lithium-ion batteries.