1. Home
  2. Space
  3. News

NASA’s Mars drone nails its first flight of 2022

By

Following several delays due to dust storms, NASA’s record-setting Ingenuity Mars helicopter has finally taken its first flight of 2022.

The 4-pound, 19-inch-tall rotorcraft flew at an altitude of 33 feet (10 meters) for almost 100 seconds and covered a distance of about 203 feet (62 meters) during its latest flight, the team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is overseeing the current Mars mission, confirmed on Tuesday.

Recommended Videos

After some dusty weather delays, it’s time to celebrate the #MarsHelicopter’s first flight of 2022! The rotorcraft flew for the 19th time on the Red Planet, soaring for 99.98 seconds over ~62 meters. pic.twitter.com/akSWkbPuST

— NASA JPL (@NASAJPL) February 8, 2022

For its 19th flight since arriving on Mars with the Perseverance rover in February 2021, the diminutive drone flew from a spot in the South Séítah basin toward the Jezero river delta. Imagery captured by its onboard cameras will enable the mission team to plan upcoming routes for Perseverance, which is heading to the delta as part of its ongoing search for evidence of ancient microbial life on the faraway planet.

Ingenuity was supposed to take its first flight of the year in early January, but a dust storm on the Martian surface prompted the mission team to suspend the plan.

As Mars features a thinner atmosphere and a less powerful gravitational pull, tiny particles that get kicked up by Martian winds can create dust storms so fierce they can last for weeks and even cover the entire planet. Indeed, Martian dust is an issue that could also impact future crewed missions to the planet.

For Ingenuity, airborne dust results in a reduced amount of sunlight reaching its solar panels, which are vital for charging the batteries that power the flying machine.

But that’s not the only problem. The dust hanging in the air is heated by sunlight and warms the surrounding atmosphere. This further reduces the density of the already-thin air, making Ingenuity’s flight conditions even more challenging if were to attempt to get airborne.

The good news is that Perseverance is carrying instruments able to detect the storms, enabling the team at JPL to protect Ingenuity from challenging flight conditions.

Ingenuity made history in April 2021 when it became the first aircraft to achieve controlled, powered flight on another planet. Its longest single flight to date took it 2,051 (625 meters) across the Martian surface. Images captured by the aircraft’s onboard camera have helped the Perseverance team to scout locations and plan safe routes for the ground-based rover, while data from its numerous test flights will also help engineers to design even more advanced aircraft for future missions.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
NASA gives green light to mission to send car-sized drone to Saturn moon

NASA’s Mars helicopter mission is now well and truly over, but following in its footsteps is an even more complex flying machine that's heading for Saturn’s largest moon.

The space agency on Tuesday gave the green light to the Dragonfly drone mission to Titan. The announcement means the design of the eight-rotor aircraft can now move toward completion, followed by construction and a testing regime to confirm the operability of the machine and its science instruments.

Read more
Final communications sent to the beloved Ingenuity Mars helicopter

Earlier this year, the beloved Mars helicopter Ingenuity ended its mission after an incredible 72 flights. Originally designed as a technology test intended to perform just five flights, NASA's helicopter was the first rotorcraft to fly on another planet and was such a success that it has already inspired plans for more exploration of distant planets using rotorcraft. Its mission came to an end, however, when it damaged one of its rotors, leaving it unable to safely fly.

Even then, the helicopter was still able to communicate by sending signals to the nearby Perseverance rover, which acted as its base station. Now, though, Perseverance is traveling away from the helicopter to continue its exploration of Mars. So this week, the NASA team on the ground met for the last time to communicate with Ingenuity, bringing the mission to a final close.

Read more
NASA needs a new approach for its challenging Mars Sample Return mission

NASA has shared an update on its beleaguered Mars Sample Return mission, admitting that its previous plan was too ambitious and announcing that it will now be looking for new ideas to make the mission happen. The idea is to send a mission to collect samples from the surface of Mars and return them to Earth for study. It's been a long-term goal of planetary science researchers, but one that is proving costly and difficult to put into practice.

The Perseverance rover has already collected and sealed a number of samples of Mars rock as it journeys around the Jezero Crater, and has left these samples in a sample cache ready to be collected.  However, getting them back to Earth in the previous plan required sending a vehicle to Mars, getting it to land on the surface, sending out another rover to collect the samples and bring them back, launching a rocket from the planet's surface (something which has never been done before), and then having this rocket rendezvous with another spacecraft to carry them back to Earth. That level of complexity was just too much to be feasible within a reasonable budget, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson announced this week.

Read more