The brave Mars helicopter Ingenuity has made its 47th successful flight over the surface of the Red Planet. This time, the take-off of the spacecraft was seen and videotaped by the Perseverance rover located nearby.
The recorded video shows how the helicopter picks up dust from the rotating propellers, then Ingenuity briefly hovers above the surface and begins its 440-meter journey to the southwest. The video was shot on March 9, 2023. At the time of shooting the video, the rover was about 120 meters away from the helicopter.
Despite the fact that they are controlled separately, NASA keeps both robots close to each other so that the devices can work in tandem. Ingenuity helps Perseverance to scout the area before it moves to its target. During this flight, Ingenuity reached an altitude of 12 meters, from which during the flight it took images for scientific purposes on its way. Later, it successfully landed at the Iota airfield.
Movie del vuelo de #Ingenuity
Substracción mas fina#NASA #Mars #Perseverance
Left Mastcam-Z camera. This is one still frame from a sequence captured by the camera while taking video.March 9, 2023 (Sol 729) https://t.co/h0BvYQ4YEg
NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/j. Roger https://t.co/GoLcuNbU3T pic.twitter.com/0rMCcK7SK3
— landru79 (@landru79) March 13, 2023
Initially, the helicopter was designed for a 30-day technology demonstration and five flights at an altitude of 3-5 m lasting up to 90 seconds each. As of March 18, it has made almost 47 flights, regularly overcoming more than a hundred meters in the air of Mars.
In total, Perseverance and Ingenuity have been exploring the territory called the “Delta Top” for several months — a region in which a river and a lake could have been comfortable for life billions of years ago.
Earlier, we reported on how Ingenuity made the longest flight in almost a year.
According to NASA
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