Mars helicopter Ingenuity flies low and late on fortunate flight 13

Number 13 became once upright success for NASA’s Mars helicopter Ingenuity, because the tenacious miniature craft seamlessly performed its 13th flight on the Crimson Planet on Saturday (Sept. 4). 

Ingenuity, or “Ginny” as or no longer it is nicknamed, landed on Mars Feb. 18 tucked inside  NASA’s Perseverance rover. The 4-pound (1.8 kilograms) chopper has  flown for a ways longer and farther than mission team of workers individuals in the starting up anticipated, now with 13 flights below its belt when it became once in the starting up slated to personal upright about a quick abilities-demonstrating sorties. 

“Cushty Flight the 13th!” NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, which manages Ingenuity’s mission, tweeted Saturday in regards to the craft’s latest worthwhile Martian travel. 

Associated: Eye NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter explore Mars’ attractive Raised Ridges

At some level of Ingenuity’s 13th flight, the helicopter, which measures upright 19 inches (48 centimeters) huge, traveled at7.3 mph (3.3 m/s), slower than the 10 mph (4.3 m/s) trot it maintained on Flight 12. On Saturday’s flight, Ingenuity captured “pictures pointing southwest of the South Seítah set. This aerial scouting continues to wait on in planning @NASAPersevere’s next moves,” JPL officials talked about in the identical tweet. 

At some level of this flight, Ingenuity additionally flew at a lower altitude than throughout its 12th flight, which additionally took pickle in the identical set. On Saturday, the craft flew upright 26 toes (8 meters) above the Martian flooring , in accordance with a flight concept revealed Sept. 3 forward of the match. On its 12th flight, Ingenuity cruised about 33 toes (10 m) above the Martian flooring. 

Saturday’s sortie marked the 2d time that Ingenuity explored the South Seítah set, which has a variable terrain that Ingenuity team of workers individuals beget beforehand described as carrying “huge risk” whereas being “geologically attractive.”

On the opposite hand, with out reference to the challenges of the set’s terrain, the flight seems to beget gone off with out a hitch. 

The concept for Flight 13 eager scoping out South Seítah extra, “to scout an situation of outcrops glimpsed in Flight 12 imagery — nonetheless we’re taking these modern pictures whereas having a glimpse wait on, pointing in the unsuitable potential,” Teddy Tzanetos, Ingenuity Workers Lead at JPL, wrote in the flight concept. 

On Flight 12, the helicopter explored the set and took pictures of ridgelines and outcrops. On Flight 13, the team of workers planned for the craft to as a replace snoop on one deliver ridgeline and outcrop, Tzanetos added. 

“Every other worthy dissimilarity is this potential that our digicam will likely be pointing. For Flight 13, we’ll be capturing pictures pointing southwest. And once they’re combined with Flight 12’s northeast perspectives, the overlapping pictures from a lower altitude must smooth present priceless perception for Perseverance scientists and rover drive planners,” Tzanetos talked about. 

In extra comparing this flight to its predecessor, “it again reinforces upright how worthy we’re concentrating our efforts in one small situation,” Tzanetos talked about. “On Flight 12 we lined 1,476 toes (450 meters) of Martian flooring in 169.5 seconds and took 10 pictures (again — all pointed northeast). On 13, we’ll screen about 690 toes (210 meters) in around 161 seconds and steal 10 pictures (pointing southwest).”

Email Chelsea Gohd at [email protected] or observe her on Twitter @chelsea_gohd. Discover us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

Chelsea Gohd joined Apartment.com as an intern in the summer of 2018 and returned as a Workers Writer in 2019. After receiving a B.S. in Public Health, she labored as a science communicator at the American Museum of Pure Historical previous and even wrote an set up for the museum’s everlasting Hall of Meteorites. Chelsea has written for publications including Scientific American, Hit upon Magazine Weblog, Astronomy Magazine, Are living Science, All That is Attention-grabbing, AMNH Microbe Mondays weblog, The Every single day Targum and Roaring Earth. When no longer writing, finding out or following the latest situation and science discoveries, Chelsea is writing music and performing as her alter ego Foxanne (@foxannemusic). That you would possibly observe her on Twitter @chelsea_gohd.