NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter stretched its legs a bit on the Crimson Planet final week.
The 4-pound (1.8 kilograms) Ingenuity carried out its 63rd Mars flight on Thursday (Oct. 19), overlaying 1,901 ft (579 meters) of floor in the method.
That was “its longest distance since Flight 25,” NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which manages Ingenuity’s mission, said via X (previously Twitter) on Monday (Oct. 23).
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Ingenuity flew for two,310 ft (704 m) on Flight 25, which occurred on April 8, 2022. That is the rotorcraft’s single-flight distance document, adopted by 2,051 ft (625 m) on Flight 9 in July 2021. Flight 63 is in third place.
This newest sortie lasted 143 seconds, in accordance with the mission’s flight log. Ingenuity obtained a most of 39 ft (12 m) above the bottom and reached a prime velocity of about 14.1 mph (22.7 kph).
These numbers aren’t information, both; the superlatives in these classes are 169.5 seconds, 66 ft (20 m) in altitude and 22.4 mph (36 kph), in accordance with the flight log.
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Ingenuity landed inside Mars’ 28-mile-wide (45 kilometers) Jezero Crater in February 2021 with NASA’s Perseverance rover.
The helicopter’s unique process was to reveal that powered flight is feasible on Mars, regardless of the planet’s thin atmosphere. Ingenuity did so over the course of 5 flights in the spring of 2021. NASA then granted a mission extension, throughout which the chopper is serving as a scout for the life-hunting, sample-collecting Perseverance.
