NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover has a ringside seat on the latest flight from its junior exploration partner.
NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter flew into the skies of Mars for the 54th time on Aug. 3, performing a simple heaving jump that lasted just 24 seconds.
Perseverance was imminent then, and it scored a surprise attack with its powerful Mastcam-Z camera system. The resulting video captures the flight in stunning detail, showing Creativity soaring, hovering and spinning to catch a few spells before returning to rest in the red soil of Mars’ Jezero Crater.
Related: Mars Helicopter Ingenuity Home Phones, Breaks Silence For 63 Days
NASA’s rover captured this view of the agency’s Ingenuity helicopter during its 54th flight to the Red Planet on August 3, 2023. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
By the way, he brings back the wonderful creativity in photography, by shooting Perseverance during a short trip.
Perseverance and Ingenuity landed together inside the 28-mile (45-kilometer) wide Jezero in February 2021. The rover is searching for signs of past Martian life and collecting samples for a future return to Earth. Dexterity assists with the mission by doing scouting work for the Perseverance team.
That was not the original function of the 4 pound (1.8 kg) helicopter; Its primary mission is to demonstrate that atmospheric exploration is possible on Mars despite its thin atmosphere. Ingenuity worked its way through an initial campaign of five flights, then morphed into a more ambitious expanded mission which now counts nearly 50 sorties.
Flight 54 is amazingly simple and short for a creative, but there’s a reason: The helicopter team wants to make sure all is well with the helicopter after Flight 53 ends prematurely. The final jump went according to plan, and the folks at Ingenuity believe it could continue flying for a while on Mars.
This isn’t the first time Perseverance has recorded Creativity flying around the Red Planet. For example, the massive rover captured video of a helicopter in action on March 9, during its 47th trip to Mars.
2023-08-10 13:26:49
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