After detaching itself from the Rover, perseverance robber,
drove away.
Leaving the little helicopter to begin testing its systems,
so that it could begin, its historic autonomous flight on
another planet.
After starting up the rotors and running through some more
tests,
it was discovered that a problem occurred, which
prevented the helicopters rotors from transitioning to
flight mode.
A solution was relayed to the helicopter and on April 19th,
ingenuities rotors were started up.
After reaching the appropriate rotor speed, ingenuities, rotor
blades, were tilted to take a bigger bite out of the Martian
atmosphere and begin flight.
The solar powered helicopter.
First became Airborne at 3:30, 4:00 a.m.
it was the time of day that gave Ingenuity time to warm up.
After a cold Martian night and winds were at their minimum.
Ingenuity climb to an altitude of 10 feet and maintain a
stable hover for 30 seconds.
It then descended touching back down on the surface of Mars.
After logging a total of thirty nine point, one seconds of
flight.
Ingenuities initial flight was autonomous and piloted by its
onboard guidance navigation and control systems
in honor of the Wright brothers and their historic flight on
Earth
ingenuities, takeoff and Landing Airfield was named
Wright brothers field.
The 19.3 inch tall Ingenuity.
Mars helicopter contains no science instruments inside its
tissue box size fuselage.
Instead the 4-pound rotorcraft goal was to demonstrate whether
future exploration of the red planet could include aerial
observations.
Images of the first flight were captured by the perseverance
Rover with its mass Kam.
Sze imagers from a vantage point of about two hundred and
ten feet away
before taking off it, checks with the instrument meta on the
Rover for information on winds and weather data
ingenuities.
Landing is a little different than on Earth,
the helicopter takes off at 1 meter per second, and descends
at 1 meter per second.
Ingenuity lands by flying directly toward the ground and
detecting.
When touchdown happens
ground is contacted at a relatively High rate of speed
of 1 meter per second
to withstand these firm Landings
Ingenuity is equipped with a suspension system in its leg
structure.
The second flight also took off from Wright, brothers filled
with an eye, for accomplishing some bigger things
on the first flight Ingenuity hovered, 10 feet above the
surface
for the second flight, the helicopter climb to 16 feet.
Then unlike the first flight, after the helicopter hovered
briefly,
it went into a slight tilt and move sideways for seven feet,
the helicopter then hovered in.
Place and made turns to point its color camera in different
directions before heading back to the center of the Airfield
to land
during the second flight Ingenuity climb to 16, feet
traveled 7 feet, to the East and back
and remained Airborne for 51.9 seconds.
It also made three, terms, totaling about 276 degrees
flight 3, occurred on Sunday, April 25th at 7:16 a.m.
the same altitude was attained but things were opened up a bit
more from.
There
are speed was increased from point five meters per second to
2 meters per second.
Ingenuity traveled, 50 meters, North and return to land at
Wright brothers field.
Total flight time.
This time was 80 Seconds
and a total distance of 100 meters.
That distance was significant because before this, the
helicopter had only Moved 4 meters laterally during flight,
too.
There was a slight delay in initiating ingenuities, Force
flight.
Once again, the rotors failed to transition to flight mode
just like before, the first flight
NASA tried.
Again, the next day and the helicopter performed as planned
for flight.
For the helicopter, took off at 10:49 am
climbing to an altitude of 16 feet before flying south
approximately, 436 feet, and then back for an 870 two foot
round trip
in total.
The helicopter was in the air this time.
For one hundred and Seventeen seconds.
This time a lot of images were captured during the flight with
both ingenuities color camera and black-and-white navigation
camera
about 60.
Images were saved from the fourth flight before it
returned to its Landing site.
Some of the black and white images were taken as stereo
pairs allowing production of 3D images of the surface.
Adding images like this, could offer a broad range of scouting
possibilities across places that robbers, can't grow more
close-ups that orbiters can't provide
during the fourth flight for the first time.
An audio recording was made of the helicopter in action,
the fourth flight help transition Ingenuity into a new
phase, during which it showed its ability to serve as a scout
for Mars rovers.
Ingenuities, fifth flight took place at 3:26, p.m.
on May 7th.
It climb to an altitude of Sixteen point five feet and
Cruz sells for 423 feet following the same path.
It followed during flight for
this time.
However,
the trip was one way
Ingenuity, did not return to the Wright brothers Landing
field instead.
It took a 108, second flight
and landed, at a new location.
Ingenuities, life was supposed to end after 30 days and a
maximum of five flights
but Ingenuity performed so.
Well, that NASA extended its Mission
with the completion of the fifth flight.
Ingenuity proved that controlled flight is possible
on the red planet
Ingenuity.
Now has new orders,
Scout ahead of the perseverance Rover to assist in its search
for past signs of microbial life.
Keeping Ingenuity and perseverance in close proximity.
Symmetry
is a logistical necessity
since the helicopter cannot talk directly to Earth
and all communication to, and from the helicopter must go
through perseverance.
The 6:00 flight was launched on May 22nd,
Ingenuity, 6:00, flight included scouting.
Multiple surface features from the air and landing at an even
different.
Airfield,
the perseverance Rover, could not record images of the
helicopter in Flight as it was preparing for the start of the
mission science operations ingenuities, 6:00 Flight Plan,
began with a helicopter, rising to 33, feet, then headed south
west for about 492.
Feet with a ground speed of 9 miles per hour.
At that point, Ingenuity began acquiring color pictures of an
area of Interest traveling south about 50 feet,
stereo imagery of the sand.
Ripples and outcrops of bright rocks.
At the site would help demonstrate the value of an
aerial perspective.
For future missions.
Approximately 54 seconds into the flight of bleach occurred
and flight 6 began to experience a major problem
Ingenuity began adjusting, its velocity, and tilting back and
forth in an oscillating pattern.
It experience role in Pitch movements of more than 20
degrees for the rest of the flight,
it experienced large control inputs and spikes in power
consumption
Ingenuity.
However, was designed to tolerate significant errors
without becoming unstable.
This design came to the rescue in flight 6.
Ingenuity, specially-designed legs.
The helicopter to withstand the hard Landings
despite such a significant problem.
Ingenuity was able to fly 160 feet Northeast and land safely
within 16 feet of the intended.
Landing location known as field.
See,
although such a stressful flight was not planned
NASA.
Now has flight data probing, the outer reaches of the
helicopters performance envelope,
Ingenuity and flight 6 flew at 9 miles per hour for 140 seconds.
It was the first time that the helicopter landed at an
Airfield, which it did not serve a from the are
going forward.
This change in ingenuities.
Mission means that flights will be more precise in maneuvering
greater use of its aerial, observation capabilities and
more risk.
Flights will also become less frequent
with perseverance has short drives in the near term.
Ingenuity May execute flights that land near the Rover's
parking spot.
The helicopter can use these opportunities to perform aerial
observations of the Rover.
Science targets,
these scouting, flights are a bonus
and not required for a perseverance to complete its
science Mission.
However,
this new phase extends ingenuities Mission beyond the
original month-long demonstration.
Now, the goal is to assess how well Flyers can help future
exploration of Mars.
And other worlds,
the type of reconnaissance that Ingenuity performs could one
day.
Also, prove useful to human missions by scoping out the
best pass for explorers to Traverse
and reaching locations that aren't otherwise possible.
The limiting factor for Ingenuity will be its ability
to withstand The Frigid Martian nights where temperatures
plunge to 130 degrees below zero fahrenheit.
Ingenuities heater was only designed to last for a month.
And Engineers aren't sure how many freeze and thaw Cycles.
It can go through before.
Something breaks,
but Ingenuity will definitely be grounded for Good.
By late August
perseverance will be wrapping up its planned science
activities, preparing for solar conjunction.
The period in mid-october when Mars and Earth or on opposite
sides of the sun blocking Communications