Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Space
  3. News

NASA’s Mars helicopter takes longest flight since lengthy layoff

By

NASA’s plucky Mars helicopter just keeps on going.

The Ingenuity aircraft completed its 31st flight on the red planet on September 6, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which is overseeing the current Mars mission, reported on Wednesday.

Recommended Videos

The helicopter, which flew into the record books in April 2021 when it became the first aircraft to perform a powered, controlled flight on another planet, traveled for 319 feet (97.2 meters) at an altitude of 33 feet (10 meters), JPL said in a tweet. The agency has yet to comment in more detail on the flight.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

We had liftoff!#MarsHelicopter completed a successful Flight 31 on September 6. Ingenuity flew 318 ft (97 m) west towards the Jezero river delta, in 55.6 seconds.

⬆️ Max Altitude: 33 ft (10 m)
➡️ Distance: 319 ft (97.2 m)

More: https://t.co/pJGZuwtbPy pic.twitter.com/OInuN4KqFj

— NASA JPL (@NASAJPL) September 7, 2022

Related

Tuesday’s sortie was the second since June 11, after which the mission team grounded Ingenuity due to an uptick in dust storms and bitterly cold seasonal temperatures.

Following its extended break, JPL tested Ingenuity in a short flight covering just a few meters on August 20. The successful hop paved the way for normal operations to resume this week, with Ingenuity this time managing to cover a decent distance. However, this was well short of its longest flight so far, in April 2022, when it traveled 2,326 meters (709 meters) over the martian surface.

Ingenuity is heading to the river delta inside the Jezero Crater, where it’ll meet up with the Perseverance rover, which is continuing its mission to collect samples of martian soil for return to Earth so scientists can study the material for evidence of ancient microbial life on the distant planet.

After completing numerous flight tests last year in which the mission team was able to prove the viability of flying such an aircraft on a planet with an atmosphere much thinner than Earth’s, JPL began using Ingenuity to assist the Perseverance rover on its explorations of Jezero Crater.

The helicopter has been helping by using its onboard camera to image areas of interest so that the team can see if it’s worth sending Perseverance for a closer look. It’s also mapping the terrain, enabling controllers to use the data to create the safest routes for Perseverance to take.

Ingenuity has performed so well that NASA recently announced it’s intending to build more advanced versions of the drone-like flying machine for future planetary missions.

Editors’ Recommendations

Topics
Trevor Mogg
Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
NASA selects 9 companies to work on low-cost Mars projects
This mosaic is made up of more than 100 images captured by NASA’s Viking 1 orbiter, which operated around Mars from 1976 to 1980. The scar across the center of the planet is the vast Valles Marineris canyon system.

NASA is expanding its plans for Mars, looking at not only a big, high-budget, long-term project to bring back a sample from Mars but also smaller, lower-cost missions to enable exploration of the red planet. The agency recently announced it has selected nine private companies that will perform a total of 12 studies into small-scale projects for enabling Mars science.

The companies include big names in aerospace like Lockheed Martin and United Launch Services, but also smaller companies like Redwire Space and Astrobotic, which recently landed on the surface of the moon. Each project will get a 12-week study to be completed this summer, with NASA looking at the results to see if it will incorporate any of the ideas into its future Mars exploration plans.

Read more
NASA video maps all 72 flights taken by Mars Ingenuity helicopter
NASA's Ingenuity helicopter.

See Ingenuity’s Flight Map: 72 Helicopter Flights on Mars

NASA has shared a video (above) that maps all of the flights taken on Mars by its trailblazing Ingenuity helicopter.

Read more
Final communications sent to the beloved Ingenuity Mars helicopter
NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter is seen here in a close-up taken by Mastcam-Z, a pair of zoomable cameras aboard the Perseverance rover. This image was taken on April 5, the 45th Martian day, or sol, of the mission.

Earlier this year, the beloved Mars helicopter Ingenuity ended its mission after an incredible 72 flights. Originally designed as a technology test intended to perform just five flights, NASA's helicopter was the first rotorcraft to fly on another planet and was such a success that it has already inspired plans for more exploration of distant planets using rotorcraft. Its mission came to an end, however, when it damaged one of its rotors, leaving it unable to safely fly.

Even then, the helicopter was still able to communicate by sending signals to the nearby Perseverance rover, which acted as its base station. Now, though, Perseverance is traveling away from the helicopter to continue its exploration of Mars. So this week, the NASA team on the ground met for the last time to communicate with Ingenuity, bringing the mission to a final close.

Read more