- NASA’s Creative Helicopter completed its tenth flight to Mars on Saturday.
- That’s twice the number of flights that NASA originally planned for the little drone.
- The engineers thought creativity would collapse more quickly, but now it’s on an extended mission.
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The ‘little helicopter that can’ do it again.
NASA’s Mars Creativity Helicopter, a rotating craft the size of a tissue box that landed with the probe in February, completed its tenth flight over the Red Planet on Saturday.
Each creative journey is bolder than the previous. So Saturday’s flight is likely to be the helicopter’s most dangerous ever: If all goes to plan, Creativity jumps 40 feet into the air, then heads south after southwest toward a cluster of rocky features called “higher elevations,” before returning to landing area approximately 310 feet west of the initial takeoff point.
Prior to Saturday, Ingenuity had covered nearly a mile, so the 10th flight helped it. Get it so far.
The flight will take about 2 minutes and 45 seconds. During that time, Ingenuity is estimated to have visited 10 different trail points, taking photos along the way.
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Jezero Crater’s annotated image of Mars depicting Earth’s path and waypoints for Ingenuity’s tenth flight.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
Flight 10 is an important milestone, as Ingenuity has now flown twice as many times as NASA engineers had planned. NASA predicts Ingenuity will crash on its fourth or fifth flight as it tests its speed and endurance limits.
But creativity continues to exceed expectations. even when Technical problem He directed the helicopter into the air in May during the sixth flight, but still managed to land safely.
Drones started as a tech show, but NASA introduced creativity secondary mission In late May after its fourth flight. Since then, Ingenuity has begun exploring new Martian terrain and testing operations NASA may wish to carry out with future space helicopters. On his recent trip, Ingenuity explored the unsurveyed area of Lake Mars Crater – A 28-mile-wide basin that filled with water about 3.5 billion years ago – lands in new areas each time.
Uneven landscaping is a challenge to ingenuity, as rocky or bumpy ground can damage its field of view, causing it to veer in the wrong direction. Ingenuity’s ninth flight earlier this month was “nail-biting”, NASA scientists sayThe helicopter had to cross a very heavy terrain.
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The Perseverance Train captured footage of Ingenuity taking off and landing on its maiden flight on April 19, 2021.
NASA / JPL-Caltech / ASU / MSSS
Creativity is still proving useful on Mars, but its future is uncertain
On Ingenuity’s first four flights, the roller coaster landed in the same place it took off. His fifth flight saw him land at the new airport where he had previously flown, photographed and mapped it. But recent flights have prompted Ingenuity to fly south over uncharted territory.
NASA engineers have not said when the Ingenuity mission will end, but the helicopter can continue to fly as long as it stays alive and does not interfere with the Perseverance spacecraft’s scientific work.
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Creativity captured a photo of its shadow during its seventh flight on Mars.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
Perseverance combing Jezero Crater in search of Possible ancient alien microbial fossil. The new Ingenuity operation can help with this mission: helicopters can explore and map terrain, identify promising areas to study from the air, and fly to locations that vehicles cannot reach.
NASA scientists are very curious about the “height”, because water may have flowed there. During its ninth flight, Ingenuity also took color photos of the interesting rock outcrop which Perseverance could later examine.
“We hope the color images will provide the closest view of Pilot Pinnacle, an outcrop site that some team members believe could record some of the deepest water environments of ancient Lake Jezero,” NASA scientists said. Writing in a recent blog post.
Nonetheless, it’s possible that his narrow schedule of persistence won’t allow him to visit the rocks, “so creativity could provide the only opportunity to study these sediments in detail,” the scientists said.
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