NASA’s Mars Ingenuity helicopter has flown farther and faster than ever before.
The 4-pound (1.8 kg) Being smart He made his 25th flight on the Red Planet last Friday (April 8), setting up new personal bests for speed and distance.
“#MarsHelicopter is breaking records again! Ingenuity has completed its 25th flight with great enthusiasm. [2,310 feet] at 5.5 meters per second in flight for 161.3 seconds, ”NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, which oversees Ingenuity’s mission, tweeted on Tuesday (April 12).
Select: 1 year later, the Ingenuity helicopter is flying hard on Mars
According to The flying story of Ingenuity, The maximum distance covered by the helicopter was 2,051 feet (625 meters), achieved during the flight in July 2021. Its first speed record was 5 meters per second, up to the aircraft a lot. (5 meters per second at about 11.2 mph, or 18 kph. 5.5 meters per second at about 12.3 mph, or 19.8 kph).
A long story was not recorded on Friday, however; That mark is 169.5 seconds, set for the August 2021 flight.
Ingenuity landed on the surface of Mars’ Jezero Crater in February 2021 with NASA’s life spacecraft. Patience rover. The small chopper was unloaded from the rover’s belly that April and embarked on a five -month, one -month voyage designed to demonstrate the ability to search for space on Mars while the Earth’s atmosphere.
Ingenuity immediately left that first announcement to the ground. He’s flying on a long -distance mission, demanding the limits of Martian flight and making sense of Perseverance, going as far as the rest can be found. Ancient river delta who was first in Jesus.
Friday’s flight was the second of five days for Ingenuity and its fifth tour last month. This is not surprising; Perseverance is making significant strides on its journey to the delta, and Ingenuity must continue.
In fact, the missionary team wanted the helicopter to go to the delta first.
“This is for two reasons: telephony and security,” Ben Morrell, Ingenuity operations engineer at JPL, wrote in a blog post on April 5th.
“Ingenuity is only talking to the helicopter base in Perseverance, so we need to stay close to have a good relationship,” he said. “For safety, it would be good if Ingenuity flew in front of Perseverance to avoid flying in front of or close to the rover, to reduce the risk of any relationship in a very bad situation.”
Mike Wall is the author of “Outside“(Grand Central Publishing, 2018; edited by Karl Tate), a book about exploring alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or at Facebook.
