Credit: Unsplash
The little whirligig has become master of the Martian skies.
Back in February of last year, NASA’s newest Mars rover, Perseverance, successfully landed on the surface of the red planet. In addition to its payload of experimental equipment and instruments, Perseverance also had a passenger, the micro-helicopter Ingenuity. Ingenuity was only supposed to run a handful of test flights to determine how the concept of flight meshes with the Martian atmosphere, but after 22 successful flights, Ingenuity shows no sign of slowing down.
“Less than a year ago we didn’t even know if powered, controlled flight of an aircraft at Mars was possible,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. “Now, we are looking forward to Ingenuity’s involvement in Perseverance’s second science campaign.”
The movements of both Perseverance on the ground and Ingenuity in the air have given NASA bundles of information about how locomotion works on Mars, providing ideas and inspirations for the next generation of Mars rovers and, perhaps some day, Martian vehicles. With the data still coming in and both Perseverance and Ingenuity holding strong, NASA is preparing to launch another round of experiments, including more test flights for Ingenuity.
Over the weekend, the #MarsHelicopter took its 22nd flight!🎉 The trip lasted 101.4 seconds and Ingenuity got up to 10 meters in the air. The team is planning another flight perhaps as early as later this week.🚁
See raw images from this flight: https://t.co/rDGwXMRo6S pic.twitter.com/uPPQmZy5ir
— NASA JPL (@NASAJPL) March 22, 2022
“This upcoming flight will be my 22nd entry in our logbook,” Ingenuity chief pilot Håvard Grip of JPL said in a press release. “I remember thinking when this all started, we’d be lucky to have three entries and immensely fortunate to get five. Now, at the rate we’re going, I’m going to need a second book.”
