6 months into Mars mission, Nasa’s gritty helicopter is still flying high
WASHINGTON: It was only supposed to fly five times. And yet Nasa’s helicopter on Mars, Ingenuity, has completed 12 flights and it isn’t ready to retire.
Given its stunning and unexpected success, the US space agency has extended Ingenuity’s mission indefinitely.
The tiny helicopter has become the regular travel companion of the rover Perseverance, whose core mission is to seek signs of ancient life on Mars.
“Everything is working so well,” said Josh Ravich, the head of Ingenuity’s mechanical engineering team.
“We’re doing better on the surface than we had expected,” he said.
Hundreds of people contributed to the project, though only about a dozen currently retain day-to-day roles.
On April 19, Ingenuity carried out its maiden flight, making history as the first motorised craft to fly on another planet.
Exceeding all expectations, it has gone on to fly 11 more times.
“We’ve actually been able to handle winds greater than we had expected,” Ravich told AFP.
“I think by flight three we had actually accomplished all of our engineering goals ... (and) got all the information we had hoped to get,” said Ravich, who works for Nasa’s famed Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which developed the helicopter.
Since then, Ingenuity has flown as high as 12m, and its last flight lasted two minutes and 49 seconds. In all, it has covered a distance of 2.57km.
Ingenuity is now being sent out to scout the way for Perseverance, using its high-resolution colour camera.
In theory, the helicopter should be able to keep operating for some time. But the approaching Martian winter will be challenging.