NASA’s groundbreaking Mars helicopter continues to give us views of a red planet we’ve never seen before.
On the last flight, which took place on 19 April, the plane weighed 4 pounds (1.8 kg). intelligence Photographed the parachute and rear fuselage with and with the assistance of NASA perseverance The spacecraft will land on the red planet Jezero Crater on February 18, 2021.
This was not an opportunity to watch. The Ingenuity team was invited to try to photograph the Perseverance landing gear to help a joint European Space Agency (NASA) and European Space Agency (ESA) Mars sample recovery project aimed at transporting material collected by Perseverance back to Earth. Probably already in 2033.
Related: A year later, the innovative helicopter is still strong on Mars
“Perseverance is best documented.” Mars Landing in history, cameras show everything from parachute filling to landing, ”said Ian Clark of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, a former Perseverance Systems engineer and now director of the rise of the Mars sample. He said in a statement on Wednesday (April 27).
“But Ibda’s photos offer a different view,” Clark added. “If they make our systems work the way we think, or even provide one set of technical data that we can use to plan a sample recovery from Mars, it would be amazing. If not, the images are still stunning. And inspiring.”
The conical back shell persistently helped it – creativity in its stomach – to cope with the long journey from the Red Planet to Earth and the short but arousing journey through it. The atmosphere of Mars. The mission’s supersonic parachute, 21.5 meters long, was the largest parachute ever used on Mars. This significantly slowed the ATV’s landing, which was eventually lowered to the Jezero floor with cables on a rocket-powered sky winch.
The back veneer and canopy did their job well, and the good health of perseverance and ingenuity is also evident. Preliminary analyzes of the new Ingenuity images show that the spacecraft lasted well despite the enormous pressure it experienced. (The tailgate is bumpy, but that’s not surprising, as it hit the surface of Mars at 78 mph, or 126 km / h on the day of landing.)
For example, JPL officials wrote in the same statement: “The back cover seems to have remained intact when returning to the atmosphere of Mars. Several of the eighty very strong suspension lines connecting the tailgate to the canopy are visible and also appear to be intact.
Although a third of the slope can be seen in the creative images, JPL officials added in their statement that “the canopy shows no signs of damage due to the supersonic flow during the airflow.” “It takes several weeks of analysis to get a more final verdict.”
During a 159-second flight on April 19, Ingenuity took 10 photos of the back deck and canopy from different angles. JPL officials said the helicopter flew a total of 1,181 feet (360 meters) in one launch, flying at an altitude of 26 feet (8 meters).
“Ingenuity did a lot of maneuvering to get the shots we needed, but we were confident because there were awkward movements on flights 10, 12, and 13,” said Havard Grip, JPL’s main pilot, Ingenuity, in the same statement.
It was Ingenuity’s 26th flight to the red planet, and it happened in Birthday From the first Mars flight in history.
Creativity is a technical demonstration that was originally seen as a five-flight mission designed to show that atmospheric research is possible on Mars. The helicopter now has an extended mission that transcends the boundaries of the Red Planet flight and acts as a patrol that searches for life and continues to persevere for sampling.
persevering lately I arrived at the remains of the Delta River which existed in the land of Jezero billions of years ago. The spacecraft team wants to explore and sample an area that may contain evidence of life on an ancient red planet. And creativity, which is yet to materialize, is a big part of this work.
“Once on the estuary, Ingenuity’s first orders may be to help determine which of the two canals of the dry river it should persevere to reach the top of the estuary,” JPL officials wrote in a statement.
“In addition to route planning assistance, the information provided by the helicopter will help the Perseverance team evaluate potential scientific targets,” they added. “Creativity can be used to describe geological features as far as the walker arrives, or to study landing areas and locations on the surface where sample deposits can be stored for the Mars sample recovery program.”
Mike Wall has written “out of the countryA book (Great Grand Publishing House, 2018; illustrated by Carl Tate), a book on the search for extraterrestrial characters. Follow him on Twitter embed tweet. Follow us on Twitter embed tweet or in Facebook.