The POT deployed its Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter to Mars to study the red planet’s terrain and atmosphere. The advances have been several, in a key mission for the North American aerospace agency and, of course, for humanity.
Ingenuity achieved a new flight record on Mars, reported this week the Jet Propulsion Laboratory from NASA: the maximum altitude of 14 meters above the surface.
The previous one was 12 meters.
Mission number 35, carried out last Saturday, lasted 52 seconds, covering a distance of almost 15 meters.
as it aims Digital Trends, this record was achieved 11 days after another, the shortest flight in the history of aviation on Mars: 4.8 meters high for 18 seconds.
The purpose of that mission was to test two new Ingenuity capabilities: hazard avoidance for landings and the use of digital elevation maps for navigation.
This is how Ingenuity works, the NASA helicopter on Mars
Ingenuity serves as a technology demonstrator for finding places, helping Perseverance find the best routes. It is a 1.8-kilogram drone and an electrical power of 220 watts, with 1.2-meter rotors from end to end.
The solar panel charges the lithium-ion batteries, providing enough power for one 90-second flight per Martian day.
Its flight environment is that of a thin atmosphere, less than 1% density than that existing on Earth.
Since February 18, 2021, Ingenuity has been located, together with the Perseverence rover, in the Jezero crater. Its first flight occurred on April 19 of that year, taking off 3 meters above the ground, hovering briefly to complete one turn, and landing.
“With its technical demonstration complete,” NASA notes, “Ingenuity moves into a new operations demonstration phase to explore how future rovers and airborne explorers can work together.”