NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter retains including to its tally of off-Earth flights.
The 4-pound (1.8 kilograms) Ingenuity flew for the 56th time on Aug. 26, staying aloft for almost 2.5 minutes on the Mars sortie.
“The #MarsHelicopter accomplished Flight 56, touring 1,334 ft (410 m) throughout the Martian floor at a most altitude of ~39 ft (12 m). The purpose of this flight was to reposition the helicopter,” NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, which manages the little rotorcraft’s mission, wrote via X (previously Twitter) on Thursday (Aug. 31).
Associated: Mars helicopter Ingenuity telephones dwelling, breaking 63-day silence
Ingenuity landed with NASA’s Perseverance rover inside Mars’ Jezero Crater in February 2021. The helicopter shortly aced its five-flight demonstration mission, exhibiting that powered flight is feasible on the Crimson Planet regardless of its skinny ambiance.
NASA then granted Ingenuity a mission extension, throughout which the chopper is serving as a scout for the life-hunting, sample-collecting Perseverance. The robotic duo are working collectively to discover the 28-mile-wide (45 kilometers) Jezero, which hosted a giant lake and a river delta billions of years in the past.
Ingenuity has racked up some spectacular numbers throughout its time on the Crimson Planet. The little drone has coated a complete of 42,369 feer (12,914 m) of floor on its 56 flights and stayed aloft for greater than 100 minutes, mission staff members wrote on Ingenuity’s flight log.
That flight log, by the best way, states that Flight 56 occurred on Aug. 25. Nevertheless, Ingenuity’s photo database dates the sortie to Aug. 26.
