Photo from the onboard camera "Ingenuity" during flight number 21. Photo source: NASA.
On March 15, 2022, NASA announced the extension of the Ingenuity mission until September 2022. The Mars helicopter will explore new locations with the Perseverance rover near the mouth of the Lake crater.
Currently, the Perseverance rover is performing its main scientific mission, collecting samples of Martian soil, and is located at a distance of several hundred meters from Ingenuity. Soon the distance between them will decrease as the rover heads towards the site of the first helicopter landings to explore some interesting, according to NASA, rocky formations of the Lake crater, previously photographed by Ingenuity from heights of 8-12 meters. Then the devices will move to the northwest to new unexplored areas of the Lake crater.
NASA announced that it has finalized the Ingenuity software. Now the helicopter can fly stably at a height of 15 meters over long distances. Previously, its ceiling was 12 meters, and it flew mainly over flat areas without large rock formations.
The Ingenuity on new flights this year could encounter gentle slopes, uneven landing areas and large rocks in the landing zones. NASA specialists have promised to add in future updates to the helicopter software a terrain elevation map in the navigation filter and the ability to prevent dangerous landing situations, for example, when fixing a pile of stones at the bottom, the helicopter may decide to perform maneuvers to land in a safer place.
NASA explained that the new Ingenuity study area includes a fan-shaped delta of a dry river with a height difference of up to 40 meters. This area is partially filled with protruding rocks, protruding boulders of various sizes, and areas with sand pockets. Some of these obstacles can interfere with the rover or prevent the helicopter from landing. NASA decided to take some risks with Ingenuity, as the helicopter could help make several geological discoveries and enable the rover to find the best and safest route to travel.
Ingenuity's new flight plan is to reach the dry river delta in the Lake Crater in several stages.
According to current statistics, Ingenuity was in operation on Mars ten times longer than the estimated time: 380 sols (Martian days), like the Perseverance rover, but 315 sols on the surface of the planet - autonomously. The helicopter was designed for 30 days of operation in Mars conditions after landing from the rover. It turned out that its capabilities allow you to fly longer. NASA in August 2021 extended the work of Ingenuity for 2022 in the mode of a reconnaissance probe to fix possible obstacles from the air and select the optimal paths for the rover.
On April 8, 2021, the rover's camera captured the procedure for checking the operation of the Ingenuity rotors.
"Ingenuity" for 21 missions flew a total of 4645 meters above the surface of Mars and spent 2330.38 seconds (more than 38 minutes) in flight mode in the planet's atmosphere. For all the flights, Ingenuity took several hundred color photographs and more than 3 thousand white photographs with the help of its cameras.
It is noteworthy that after 21 flights, Ingenuity covered almost the same distance in the planet's atmosphere that the Perseverance rover in scientific research mode traveled over the surface for the entire time: more than 4590 meters.
Ingenuity's hardware systems are based on the Snapdragon 801 SoC board. It runs Linux and open source software.
On April 19, Ingenuity made its first autonomous flight, and the rover made and sent a video of it to Earth.
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