Ingenuity’s first Martian helicopter prepares to fly again

The American Aeronautics and Space Administration NASA announced plans for a new flight of the Ingenuity helicopter on the Red Planet.

Tomorrow, Sunday 6 June 2021, the seventh flight of the first Martian helicopter is due to take place. NASA experts plan to send Ingenuity about 106 meters south of its current location and the helicopter should land at the new base.

As noted by NASA, this will be the second time Ingenuity will land at a new “airfield”, which he did not observe from the air during the previous flight.

Instead, the Ingenuity team relies on camera images aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), which show the new base of operations is relatively flat and has few surface obstructions. Flight data will be sent to Earth within three days of the flight.

Ingenuity’s sixth combat mission took place on May 22, 2021. He was supposed to expand the range of flight and demonstrate the possibilities of aerial photography, receiving stereo images of the desired area in the west. At that time, the flight went with technical failures, but in general, NASA experts were satisfied with how Ingenuity completed the task and coped with the unforeseen circumstances that arose.

Recall that the Ingenuity helicopter was delivered to Mars attached to the bottom of the Perseverance rover, which landed in Jezero crater on February 18, 2021. Ingenuity’s main objectives are to demonstrate technology and conduct the first flights to Mars. After the first successful flights of Ingenuity, NASA decided to expand its mission and test a helicopter for reconnaissance and escort of the rover.