NASA's Mars helicopter has been performing so well over the last year that the space agency has decided to extend its flight operations through September.
NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter made history in April 2021 when it became the first aircraft to achieve powered, controlled flight on another planet.
Since its first flight, the 4 pound, 19-inch-high helicopter has flown a further 20 times, traveling as far as 625 meters in a single trip, reaching altitudes as high as 12 meters, and zipping over the martian surface at speeds of up to 5 meters per second. JPL has recently made several adjustments to Ingenuity’s flight software that will now allow it to fly higher and also to change airspeed as it flies. Future software upgrades could include adding terrain elevation maps into the navigation filter and a landing-hazard-avoidance capability, JPL said.
It means that in the coming months the aircraft will be taking on an ancient river delta in Jezero Crater, using its onboard camera to identify areas of interest that NASA’s Perseverance rover can explore in search of evidence of past microbial life on the distant planet.
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