NASA鈥檚 helicopter Ingenuity has taken more than 2200 photographs of Mars since arriving on the planet just over a year ago.
Ingenuity was designed to scout out potential routes for the six-wheeled Perseverance rover to travel across Mars鈥檚 45-kilometre-wide Jezero crater, while it searches for signs of ancient microscopic life.
Ingenuity is fitted with two cameras, a 0.3-megapixel black-and-white navigational camera and a 13-megapixel colour camera that is similar to the average smartphone camera.
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By its 18th flight in December 2021, Ingenuity had taken 2277 photos of Mars. at the California Institute of Technology and his colleagues summarised Ingenuity鈥檚 time on Mars at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Texas on 7 March.
鈥淲e flew to an area called S茅铆tah and imaged it in stereo using both colour and the black-and-white cameras,鈥� says Golombek. 鈥淭hose images were used to decide which materials to go and inspect with the rover, as well as to plan pathways that the rover could drive because the S茅铆tah region has lots of sandy areas and rocky areas that may be difficult to traverse.鈥�
The helicopter has taken photographs of locations that Perseverance cannot cross, providing scientists with information about Mars鈥檚 local environment.
鈥淲hen you do see rocks, it鈥檚 likely to have a whole bunch of small rocks and we use that information to select the next 15 landing sites for the helicopter and all of them have been safe,鈥� says Golombek.
Ingenuity completed its 20th flight on 25 February. The furthest it has flown was 625 metres, with a top speed of 5 metres per second. Each flight usually lasts a few minutes, reaching altitudes of 5 to 10 metres above the surface of Mars.
The helicopter is the first vehicle to use powered flight on another planet and was initially intended to operate for just one month. Nothing has gone wrong with the spacecraft, however, with Golombek鈥檚 team being able to remotely improve its software over time, he says.
鈥淲e鈥檙e happy campers,鈥� says Golombek. 鈥淲e鈥檝e gone 12 times longer than originally intended and there鈥檚 nothing to keep us from continuing to fly for quite some time in the future.鈥�
