NASA’s Mars Helicopter ingenuity has flown farther and faster than ever before.
4 pounds (1.8 kilograms) cleverness She made her 25th voyage on the Red Planet last Friday (April 8th), setting new personal bests in terms of speed and distance.
“#MarsHelicopter breaks records again! Ingenuity has completed its 25th and most ambitious flight. It broke ground speed and distance records, with a 704m [2,310 feet] at 5.5 meters per second while flying for 161.3 seconds,” NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, which operates the Ingenuity mission, Tweet on Tuesday (12 April).
Related: One year later, the innovative helicopter is still going strong on Mars
to me Record your creativity journeyThe helicopter’s greatest travel distance was 2,051 feet (625 metres), achieved during a flight in July 2021, and its previous speed was recorded at 5 meters per second, which it had reached on multiple flights. (5 meters per second is about 11.2 miles per hour or 18 kilometers per hour. 5.5 meters per second equals about 12.3 miles per hour or 19.8 kilometers per hour).
However, the Friday flight did not set a record for the duration; That mark is 169.5 seconds, set during a flight in August 2021.
Ingenuity touches down on the floor of Mars’ Jezero Crater in February 2021 with NASA to search for life and cache samples perseverance rover. The small helicopter popped out of the probe’s belly in April and embarked on a five-flight, one-month mission designed to show that atmospheric exploration is possible on Mars despite the planet’s thin atmosphere.
Creativity soon left that initial campaign in the dust. It’s now flying on an extended mission, pushing the boundaries of Mars flight and reconnaissance for persistence, which makes its way to the accessible remnants of the Martian ship. ancient river delta which was located in Jezero.
Friday’s ride was the second in five days of ingenuity and its fifth run in the past month. Such activity is not surprising; Perseverance has been making its way to the delta, and creativity has to keep up.
In fact, the mission team wants the helicopter to reach the delta first.
“That’s for two reasons: communications and safety,” Ben Morrell, JPL Innovation Processes Engineer, Wrote in a blog post on April 5.
He added that “Creativity only communicates with the helicopter base in perseverance, so it should remain close enough to have a good connection.” “For safety’s sake, Ingenuity best advances before persevering to avoid ever having to fly over or near the rover, to reduce the risk of any close contact in the worst case scenario.”
Mike Wall is the author of “AbroadBook (Great Grand Publishing House, 2018; illustrated by Carl Tate), a book on the search for extraterrestrials. Follow him on Twitter Tweet embed. Follow us on Twitter Tweet embed or on Facebook.
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