The helicopter naivety continues to exceed everyone’s expectations, NASA included. The small autonomous vehicle managed to complete its 23rd flight a few days ago, and now its mission goes beyond verifying that it was possible to fly on Mars.
In fact, Ingenuity is becoming an invaluable ally for the Perseverance rover, which does most of the field work. However he now has a partner who is exploring the terrain and “chiván” what areas can be the most interesting to conduct scientific experiments.
Ingenuity is quite the Martian explorer
This month of March is being especially active for Ingenuity, which, except for that first month of April in which it made four flights, had never made more than two flights in any month. This month of March he has done three.
23 flights and counting! #MarsHelicopter successfully completed its 23rd excursion. It flew for 129.1 seconds over 358 meters. Data from Ingenuity in the new region it’s headed to will help the @NASAPersevere team find potential science targets. https://t.co/TNCdXWcKWE pic.twitter.com/I63LrizOEc
— NASA JPL (@NASAJPL) March 25, 2022
NASA has celebrated the achievement by noting how this new incursion has made Ingenuity fly for 129 seconds and travel 358 meters to explore Jezero Craterwhich will be the next area the Perseverance rover will head to continue its science experiments.
For weeks, the Ingenuity flights have been aimed at helping NASA get much more detail about the Martian surface and what can be the best way for Perseverance to reach that area.
The fixes and improvements made over the past few flights have made Ingenuity a consummate explorer. Flight 22 was especially short in distance (he only traveled 68 meters), but not so much in duration (101.4 seconds).
Ingenuity seemed to take things in stride because it was one of the slowest flights since its mission began, perhaps to prepare the helicopter for this 23rd flight, which has been longer and for which there is still no additional information in the famous Ingenuity flight book.
Ingenuity’s current position makes it clear that it is running ahead of Perseverance in analyzing the terrain that the Rover will slowly head into.
The crater is in a delta that it was filled with water millions of years ago and that it would have been a candidate location for life if there ever was life on Mars.
That is why the mission is centered in this region of the red planet, and Ingenuity — whose position can be consulted at all times on NASA’s interactive map — is crucial for the Perseverance rover to be successful in its movements.
The latter must be very careful to avoid obstacles that could shorten his life (or even disable him), and if anyone is helping him to prevent that from happening, it’s the little Martian helicopter.
George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism