Skip to main content

Mars helicopter Ingenuity gears up for flight number 21 today

Mars’s tiniest aerial explorer, the NASA helicopter Ingenuity, is getting ready to make its 21st flight, on its way back to reunite with the Perseverance rover. NASA announced that the flight would take place no earlier than today, March 5, as the helicopter works its way back to the rover so it can act as a scout for upcoming exploration of the Jezero crater delta. Being able to scout ahead of the rover could help Perseverance both avoid any potential obstacles and locate any particular areas of scientific interest as it continues its mission to search for evidence of ancient life on Mars.

#MarsHelicopter is moving on to the next flight! The rotorcraft is attempting Flight 21 no earlier than March 5. This will be one of a few trips required to reach a staging area near the base of Jezero Crater’s delta to scout ahead for @NASAPersevere’s planning and science teams. pic.twitter.com/HFDoAM1v0F

— NASA JPL (@NASAJPL) March 5, 2022

This follows last week’s successful flight 20, in which the helicopter was in the air for 130.3 seconds and covered 391 meters, at a speed of 4.4 meters per second.

The helicopter is currently on a series of flights that will return it back to its rover partner Perseverance. Ingenuity had headed off to scout a region called South Séítah, but now it is on its way back to where it first took off, at the Wright Brothers Field at the Octavia E. Butler landing site. The idea is for Ingenuity to rejoin Perseverance, so it can act as a scout to look ahead of the rover’s path and get the lie of the terrain. Engineers estimated it would take between four and seven flights for Ingenuity to make it back to the landing site, in a process that began in November last year.

Flight 21, to be performed shortly, will be the seventh flight on this return leg, as this mini road trip has had its share of challenges. A major dust storm in the area lead to one flight being delayed, and the helicopter then had to shake the dust off itself to continue. The changes in Martian seasons also pose a challenge for the helicopter, as lower air density requires it to spin its blades faster. But Ingenuity has met all of the challenges that have been thrown at it so far, so hopefully, it will soon make it safely back to Perseverance to continue in the next phase of Mars exploration.

Editors' Recommendations

Georgina Torbet
Georgina is the Digital Trends space writer, covering human space exploration, planetary science, and cosmology. She…
Mars is spinning faster every year and no one knows exactly why
This annotated artist’s concept of NASA’s InSight lander on Mars points out the antennas on the spacecraft’s deck.

We're constantly learning more about the other planets in our solar system, especially Mars thanks to the multiple missions currently active there. But even retired missions can provide data for years after they have concluded, as is the case with a recent study that used data from the InSight lander.

The mission officially ended in December 2022 when the lander's solar panels became too covered in dust to provide enough power to keep it running. But recent analysis of data collected by the lander has revealed some surprises about Mars, including the fact that the planet is rotating faster every year.

Read more
NASA’s Mars helicopter glimpses Perseverance rover from the sky
NASA's Ingenuity helicopter.

NASA’s Mars Helicopter, Ingenuity, captured an aerial image of the Perseverance rover during its latest flight at the end of last week.

The aircraft and rover arrived together on the red planet in February 2021, and since then both have been operating inside the Jezero Crater, a dried-up lake that scientists believe could contain evidence of ancient life.

Read more
Curiosity rover battles up a 23-degree slope in its exploration of Mars
Curiosity Rover

The Curiosity rover is slowly making its way up Mount Sharp, a 3-mile-tall mountain on Mars. Mountains are useful to study as their steep slopes can reveal layers of material laid down over time, like a geological time capsule. But just like heaving up a mountain is a challenge for humans, it can be tricky for rovers too. Curiosity recently took on a particularly steep and slippery slope, marking its most challenging climb to date.

How difficult terrain is for a rover to pass depends on a number of factors, including how steep it is, how slippery the sand is, and what obstacles such as boulders or sharp rocks are present. This ascent, which the rover tackled through May and June, had all of the above including a 23-degree incline. “If you’ve ever tried running up a sand dune on a beach – and that’s essentially what we were doing – you know it’s hard, but there were boulders in there as well,” said Amy Hale, a Curiosity rover driver at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), in a statement.

Read more