Members of the NASA Mars Helicopter team inspect the flight model (the actual vehicle going to the Red Planet), inside the Space Simulator, a 25-foot-wide (7.62-meter-wide) vacuum chamber at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, on Feb. ET on April 19-in the midafternoon local time on Mars-the helicopter successfully completed its first flight. After reviewing the data, the team at JPL adjusted the command sequence that is sent to the spacecraft to start the rotors, allowing them to complete the high-speed spin test on April 16. The Martian helicopter experienced a setback on April 9, when the craft’s onboard computer shut down early during a test to spin the two rotors at high speed. For more about Perseverance: /mars2020/ For more about Ingenuity: go./ingenuity The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA's Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet. Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis. The rover will characterize the planet's geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust). A key objective for Perseverance's mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The Mars helicopter technology demonstration activity is supported by NASA's Science Mission Directorate, the NASA Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate, and the NASA Space Technology Mission Directorate. WATSON was built by Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego, and is operated jointly by MSSS and JPL. Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages JPL for NASA. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory built and manages operations of Perseverance and Ingenuity for the agency.
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In addition to a full image showing the rover looking at the camera, there is a full image showing the rover looking down at the Ingenuity helicopter (Figure 1) an over the shoulder view of the rover looking at the camera (Figure 2) an over the shoulder view looking at the Ingenuity helicopter (Figure 3) and an animated GIF showing the rover looking at the camera and then back at the Ingenuity helicopter (animation link). There are several versions of this selfie. Videos explaining how the rovers take their selfies can be found here. The Curiosity rover takes similar selfies using a camera on its robotic arm. Perseverance's selfie with Ingenuity is made up of 62 individual images stitched together once they are sent back to Earth they were taken in sequence while the rover was looking at the helicopter, then again while it was looking at the WATSON camera. NASA's Perseverance Mars rover took a selfie with the Ingenuity helicopter, seen here about 13 feet (3.9 meters) from the rover in this image taken April 6, 2021, the 46th Martian day, or sol, of the mission by the WATSON (Wide Angle Topographic Sensor for Operations and eNgineering) camera on the SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals) instrument, located at the end of the rover's long robotic arm. The highest helicopter flight in history occurred in 1972, when French aviator Jean Boulet flew to 40,820 feet at an airbase northwest of Marseille. The wispy atmosphere at Mars’s surface is equivalent to an altitude of about 100,000 feet on Earth-much higher than even the most capable helicopters can fly. “A lot of people thought it was not possible to fly at Mars,” says MiMi Aung, the project manager of Ingenuity at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). The flight lasted only about 40 seconds, but it represents one of history's most audacious engineering feats. The 19-inch-tall chopper called Ingenuity kicked up rusty red dust as it hovered about 10 feet off the ground, turned slightly, and slowly touched back down. The Ingenuity helicopter captured this image of its shadow as it hovered about 10 feet above the Martian surface during its first flight.Ī small helicopter opened a new chapter of space exploration this morning when it lifted off the surface of Mars, marking humankind’s first powered flight on another planet.