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The Ingenuity helicopter captured the first color image of 5.2 meters above the surface of Mars during the second flight of the aircraft, carried out this Thursday (22). The helicopter of Nasa has a third flight scheduled for this Sunday (25).
The aircraft flew autonomously for 52 seconds during the second flight and soared 4.9 meters through the atmosphere of Mars. After hovering, the helicopter tilted at an angle of 5 degrees and moved laterally for 2.1 meters.
Ingenuity hovered again to make three laps. This allowed the helicopter’s color camera to capture images from different angles. During the first flight, on April 19, the aircraft captured only black and white photographs.
The color image was shared on Friday by NASA and is the first taken by air vehicle on Martian soil. On both sides of the image, landing points can be seen on two of the four legs of the helicopter.
The helicopter’s shadow on the surface of Mars can be seen at the bottom of the image.
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The helicopter’s perspective view reveals traces taken by the Perseverance rover when it initially deposited the helicopter in the middle of its airfield, now known as the Wright Brothers’ Field.
There is also a glimpse of the Martian horizon in the upper right and left corners of the photo.
The helicopter crew believes that this image helps demonstrate the unique aerial reconnaissance capabilities of Ingenuity and other rotary-wing aircraft that could be modeled on it in the future.
Sunday flight
The third helicopter flight is scheduled for this Sunday. The data and images will begin to be transmitted to the control room at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., At 11:16 am (GMT).
During previous flights, Ingenuity was moving at about half a meter per second. Now, the helicopter will increase that speed to 2 meters per second.
The aircraft will also fly 50 meters to the north before returning to land at the landing site.
The mission team is planning a total flight time of 80 seconds, the longest so far, and a total distance of about 100 meters.
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“While that number may not seem like much, consider that we never moved laterally more than the length of two pencils when we did the flight test in the vacuum chamber here on Earth,” wrote Håvard Grip, chief pilot of the Ingenuity Mars helicopter at Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
“Although the 4 meters of lateral movement on the second flight (2 meters forward and 2 meters backwards) were excellent, providing a lot of fantastic data, it was still only 4 meters. As such, the third flight is a big step, one in which Ingenuity will begin to experience freedom in the sky ”.
The helicopter still has another week to fly two more flights before the 31-day mission ends.
“Although we are conducting our flight tests in a tenuous atmosphere more than 290 million kilometers from Earth, we model our methodical approach to experimental flight in the approach of the Wright brothers,” wrote Grip. “Our plan from day one was to prepare like crazy, fly, analyze data (like crazy) and then plan an even more daring test on the next flight.”
(Translated text, Click here and read the original in English).
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