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NASA Perseverance has recently “celebrated” its landing on Marswhich occurred on February 18, 2021. As he begins his third (Earth) year on the Red Planetthe rover will face new challenges as it is leaving the relatively flat area of the Jezero crater to go up the delta of the river that once filled it with water. Here it is thought there may be the greatest chance of finding traces of microbial life dating back millions of years. Accompanying the US rover is also the NASA Ingenuity drone.
We recall that the latter is a experimental project (Mars Helicopter) developed to try to understand if in the future it will be possible to use not only rovers but also drones to move faster on the surfaces of planets and moons (equipped with an atmosphere). According to what we have seen with Ingenuity the premises are more than good considering that to decree this part of the mission “a success” five flights would have been enough and now we are at the 43rd.
NASA Ingenuity manages to complete the 43rd flight
During the first week of February, the 42nd flight was completed Mars and so we were preparing for the 43rd which then was completed on 16 February. As explained in the past, now the drone it will find itself flying in decidedly more inaccessible areas with gullies and non-flat terrains as well as obstacles in its path.
Despite everything the engineers will rely on NASA Ingenuity to be able to drive faster and with less risk the more complex (and expensive) NASA Perseverance. It has not yet been decided whether the drone will always be in front of the rover or will switch places when necessary. Surely it will be necessary to pay attention to the distance between the two considering that theMartian helicopter it cannot communicate directly with the Earth but it always needs Perseverance.
The data of 43rd flight report a distance traveled of 390 meters (never so far since the end of April 2022) with a maximum altitude of 12 meters (never so high since December 3, 2022). The maximum speed was then not among the highest, reaching i 4 m/s equal to 14.4 km/h. The flight time was 146″, never so much time in the air since April of last year. Moving over the ground, the airfield was also changed, going from Gamma to Epsilon.
Currently NASA Perseverance e NASA Ingenuity are 300 meters apart. The rover is continuing to move after depositing ten test tubes containing samples on the ground. The aim is to continue exploring this area, doing analyzes and collecting samples to complete all the tubes of the Mars Sample Return mission. There is still a lot to discover.
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