NASA's Mars helicopter Ingenuity has flown its first mile on the Red Planet, which was the most difficult and longest flight of all times.This was reported by NASA.
“The #MarsHelicopter’s success today marks its 1-mile total distance flown. It targeted an area called "Raised Ridges." This is the most complex flight yet w/ 10 distinct waypoints and a record height of 40 ft (12 m). Its scouting is aiding @NASAPersevere,” NASA tweeted.
The small chopper surpassed the 1-mile (1.6 km) mark of its total flight distance on Saturday (July 24) when soared over a rocky region called "Raised Ridges" at its Jezero Crater home. The sortie was the 10th and highest trip yet for Ingenuity, which arrived on Mars with NASA's Perseverance rover in February. Ingenuity's first flight occurred in April.
Flight 10 was the most challenging yet for Ingenuity, with 10 different waypoints for the helicopter to hit as it flew over its "Raised Ridges" target. It reached a maximum altitude of 40 feet (12 meters), a new record height, and flew about 310 feet (95 m). From take-off to landing, the entire flight lasted 165.4 seconds. That's just under 3 minutes.
During the flight, Ingenuity was expected to snap a series of images, including ones that could help scientists create stereo images of the Raised Ridges rocks. The ridges are an area mission scientists are considering to send the Perseverance rover.
Ingenuity is now parked on its seventh airfield on Mars as mission scientists examine telemetry and images from the flight.
Originally designed to fly four flights on Mars, the Ingenuity helicopter is the first vehicle to ever attempt powered flight on another world, NASA says.
“The Mars Helicopter, Ingenuity, is a technology demonstration to test powered, controlled flight on another world for the first time. It hitched a ride to Mars on the Perseverance rover. Once the rover reached a suitable "airfield" location, it released Ingenuity to the surface so it could perform a series of test flights over a 30-Martian-day experimental window,” the message reads.
The helicopter completed its technology demonstration after three successful flights. For the first flight on April 19, 2021, Ingenuity took off, climbed to about 10 feet (3 meters) above the ground, hovered in the air briefly, completed a turn, and then landed. It was a major milestone: the very first powered, controlled flight in the extremely thin atmosphere of Mars, and, in fact, the first such flight in any world beyond Earth. After that, the helicopter successfully performed additional experimental flights of incrementally farther distance and greater altitude.
With its tech demo complete, Ingenuity transitions to a new operations demonstration phase to explore how future rovers and aerial explorers can work together.