NASA”s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Captures Record Flight
| Credit | Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech |
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NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter made a record-breaking 25th flight on April 18, 2022. The navigation camera aboard the rotorcraft captured its longest and fastest flight to date on the Red Planet.
The helicopter covered 2,310 feet (704 meters) at a max speed of 12 mph (5.5 meters per second). Footage of the 161.3-second flight was sped up approximately five times. In the video, Ingenuity first reaches an altitude of 33 feet (10 meters). The helicopter then moves southwest and accelerates to 12 mph (5.5 meters per second) in less than three seconds. Ingenuity flies over a group of sand ripples and then by several rock fields.
Finally, the helicopter finds a landing spot when relatively flat terrain appears below. Ingenuity became the first aircraft in history to make a powered, controlled flight on another planet on April 19, 2021, from Wright Brothers Field in Jezero Crater, Mars.