NASA claims: Mars Ingenuity helicopter records

Read Time:2 Minute, 15 Second

NASA announced that the Mars helicopter Ingenuity had broken two new records after spending more than two years on the red planet’s surface.

NASA claims that the Mars Ingenuity helicopter has broken speed and height records

On Sunday, the helicopter flew at 14.5 miles per hour, breaking the previous mark of 13.4 miles per hour. Reached its highest point of 52.5 feet, exceeding its earlier top height of 46 feet. NASA published a flight log of data from Ingenuity, which has flown 49 missions and has been on Mars since February 2021.

Table of Contents

Ingenuity Helicopter Breaks The records and Motivates New Technology for Mars Discovery

NASA’s Perseverance rover brought ingenuity to Mars. The helicopter has been through a series of tests over the last two years and is right now in the operations showing phase. Which NASA explains as “looking to discover how future rovers and upward explorers can work in touch.”

Ingenuity has previously set records: According to NASA, it will be the first powered. Monitored flight in Mars’ exceptionally thin atmosphere in April 2021. Teddy Tzanetos, Ingenuity Team Lead, spoke from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in a video released Tuesday, saying that the records that were set by Ingenuity were allowing programmers to advance future helicopter design.

“These kinds of wins are coming directly from the surface of Mars into the design of the new sample reconstruction helicopters. She’s done an outstanding job and exceeded any sort of metric achievement that anyone on the team might have had in mind for this little small four-pound spacecraft,” he explained.

On YouTube, the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory video Ingenuity Helicopter Inspires Future Flights on Mars (Mars Report – April 2023)

New Helicopters Built to Transport Sample Tubes and Explore Hard-to-Reach Areas of Mars

Tzanetos described the sample reconstruction helicopters as the next stage of technology that will work in tandem with Persistence. The rover will collect sample tubes, which will be recovered by the return lander. A rocket built into the lander will allow the device to return instances to Earth.

“We’re designing the following generation of helicopters so that they can not only pick up. Carry an experiment tube but also motivate within on the surface,” he explained.

A “hexacopter,” or a six-motored helicopter about the size of a rover. That is different advancement that could help get to previously unreachable parts of Mars.

“You can imagine vehicles of these Mars science helicopters flying around in the future. Carrying essential payloads to parts of Mars that have never been capable to get to before,” Tzanetos said.