Perseverance Rover Watches Ingenuity Mars Helicopter's 54th Flight

  • Released Monday, September 25, 2023
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NASA's Perseverance Mars rover captured this video of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter's 54th flight on Aug. 3, 2023. After performing a preflight "wiggle check" with its rotors, the helicopter takes off, hovers at an altitude of 16 feet (5 meters), and rotates to the left, before touching back down. The mission conducted the short pop-up flight to check Ingenuity's navigation system.

The video was captured by the rover's Mastcam-Z imager from a distance of about 180 feet (55 meters).

NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter has completed 59 flights (as of 9/25/23) since first taking to the skies above the Red Planet on April 19, 2021, far exceeding its originally planned technology demonstration of up to five flights. The many highlights of Ingenuity's historic and successful activities on Mars include:

- The first aircraft to achieve powered, controlled flight on another planet, a feat that's been called a "Wright Brothers moment"

- Completing 106.5 flying minutes, covering 8.3 miles (13.3 km), and reaching altitudes as high as 65.6 ft (20.0 m)

- Successfully flying in the extremely thin Martian atmosphere

- Previewing areas of Mars of possible interest for the Perseverance rover to explore

- Paving the way for future aerial explorers at Mars and, potentially, other space destinations

NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter acquired this image of its own shadow using its navigation camera. This camera is mounted in the helicopter's fuselage and pointed directly downward to track the ground during flight. During this flight Ingenuity reached 20 meters (55 feet) in altitude, its highest yet. This image was acquired on Sept. 16, 2023 (Sol 915 of the Perseverance rover mission) at the local mean solar time of 11:07:36. This was the date of Ingenuity's 59th flight.

NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter acquired this image of its own shadow using its navigation camera. This camera is mounted in the helicopter's fuselage and pointed directly downward to track the ground during flight. During this flight Ingenuity reached 20 meters (55 feet) in altitude, its highest yet.

This image was acquired on Sept. 16, 2023 (Sol 915 of the Perseverance rover mission) at the local mean solar time of 11:07:36. This was the date of Ingenuity's 59th flight.

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Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS

  • Technical support

    • Amy Moran (Global Science and Technology, Inc.)

This page was originally published on Monday, September 25, 2023.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, November 15, 2023 at 12:45 AM EST.