NASA’s Mars helicopter, Ingenuity, is grounded for good. However it achieved rather a lot throughout its virtually three-year journey on the purple planet.
It was solely despatched as a know-how demonstration to see how nicely it carried out in Mars’ super-thin environment. 5 flights had been deliberate over 30 days, however Ingenuity ended up taking to the martian skies a formidable 72 occasions and turning into the primary plane to carry out powered, managed flight on one other planet.
Certain, there have been a couple of points alongside the best way, however they had been all fastened by the mission staff’s crack engineers based mostly at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
However a broken propellor sustained through the helicopter’s most up-to-date flight earlier this month is one thing than can’t be resolved with a software program replace, so Ingenuity’s flying days are nicely and actually over.
The 4-pound, 19-inch-tall plane carried out so nicely that it ended up helping NASA’s Perseverance rover in its ongoing quest to uncover proof of historical microbial life on the purple planet. It did this by utilizing its onboard digital camera to supply aerial imagery that was used to find areas of curiosity, and likewise to search out secure and environment friendly routes for the rover because it moved from web site to web site.
The staff additionally pushed Ingenuity to the restrict to see simply what it was able to reaching within the martian skies.
Listed here are the important thing stats obtained from Ingenuity’s official flight log:
Complete variety of flights: 72
First flight: April 19, 2021 (hover solely)
Closing flight: January 18, 2024
Complete time within the sky: 128.8 minutes
Complete distance flown: 11 miles
Quickest pace: 10 meters per second on flights 62, 68, and 69
Furthest flight: 705 meters on flight 69
Highest flight: 24 meters (hover solely) on flight 61
Longest time within the air: 169.5 seconds on flight 12
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