Photo from the onboard camera "Ingenyuiti" during flight number 18. Photo source: NASA.
NASA said that on December 15, Ingenueiti flew 18 and continued to return to its first take-off field, from where it took off in April. During this mission, the Martian helicopter covered a distance of 230 meters in 124.3 seconds, it rose to a height of 10 meters and accelerated to a speed of 2.5 m / s. During the flight, "Ingenuity" took color photographs of the surface of Mars. The helicopter landed north of the take-off site at its new tenth landing site during its entire time on Mars.
Flight 18 was the fourth, during which the Ingenuity flew with a 10% increased speed of the blades - 2,700 rpm. Before the previous flight, NASA updated the firmware of the helicopter and improved its ability to maintain the given coordinates and course after long flights over uneven surfaces, so that the landing site was as planned, and did not differ by 5-9 meters due to the accumulation of directional positioning error after long flights over rocky and high-rise areas. In flight # 18 this was verified.
Also, this flight was the third in a series of 2-4 more flights, after which "Ingenyuiti" will return to its very first take-off site on Mars called "The Wright Brothers Field". The Perseverance rover will also arrive there. The devices will jointly explore the mouth of the Jezero crater.
At present, the Perseverance rover is carrying out its main scientific mission, collecting samples of Martian soil, and is located at a distance of several hundred meters from Ingenyuity. Soon the distance between them will be reduced, as the rover is heading towards the place of the first helicopter landings to study some rocky formations of the Yezero crater, interesting according to NASA, which were previously photographed by Ingenyuiti from heights of 8-12 meters.
According to current statistics, Ingenuity has been in operation on Mars three times longer than the estimated time - 295 sols (Martian days) on Mars, like the Perseverance rover, but 230 sols on the planet's surface are autonomous. The helicopter was designed for 30 days of operation in the conditions of Mars after landing from the rover. It turned out that its capabilities allow you to fly longer. NASA has extended the work of "Ingenueiti" until the end of the year in the mode of a reconnaissance probe to fix possible obstacles from the air and select the optimal paths for the rover. "Ingenyuiti" flew a total of 38222 meters above the surface of Mars and spent 1970.9 seconds (more than 32 minutes) in flight mode in the planet's atmosphere. For all flights "Ingenuity" made with the help of its cameras about a hundred color photographs and more than 1.6 thousand black and white photographs.
The Ingenuity hardware systems are based on the Snapdragon 801 SoC board. Linux and open source software are installed.
On April 19, Ingenueiti made its first autonomous flight, and the rover made and sent a video of it to Earth.
On November 18, 2021, NASA showed a video of the Ingenueiti helicopter during Flight 13, which was captured by the Perseverance rover. This happened in early September, but the agency received footage from spacecraft from Mars only recently.
On December 5, Ingenyuiti made flight number 17 and temporarily lost radio contact with the rover due to the terrain between the vehicles. NASA expects this situation to recur due to new helicopter missions away from the rover. To further provide the best chance of maintaining communications during landing, NASA's Flight 18 team re-sequenced the communications system in low data rate with the rover to further increase signal strength for communications during flight and after landing.
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