Ingenuity still "as good as new" after nearly a year on Mars
by Jeff Foust March 12, 2022
Ingenuity, originally developed as a tech demo with a goal of up to five flights, has now flown 21 times and serves as a scout for the Perseverance rover. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS
WASHINGTON After nearly a year of operations, NASAs Ingenuity Mars helicopter is still as good as new as it serves as a scout for the Perseverance rover.
NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced March 11 that Ingenuity completed its 21st flight on the planet, traveling 370 meters during the 129-second flight. The helicopter has now traveled more than 4.6 kilometers since its first flight in April 2021.
Ingenuity was developed as a technology demonstration, with an original plan of no more than five flights over a month. The excellent performance of the 1.8-kilogram helicopter, though, led NASA to extend its mission, using it as a scout to examine terrain ahead of the Perseverance rover that carried Ingenuity to Mars.
The information Ingenuity has provided has created some modest time savings for Perseverance. Its certainly shaved several sols, maybe a week, off of the time frame of the rover by having this advanced information, said Matt Golombek, a senior research scientist at JPL who has been involved with Mars landers dating back to Mars Pathfinder, during a March 8 media briefing at the Lunar and Planetary Sciences Conference. A sol is a Martian day, about 40 minutes longer than a terrestrial day.
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