The creativity helicopter succeeded in its fourth flight last Friday, After some initial crashes due to flaws in your software. On the fourth flight, the helicopter ascended to a height of five meters, after it flew 133 meters while returning to the same point, and it reached a total of 266 meters, in a period of 117 seconds, You surpassed your third flight records.
However, the team has already drawn up new plans for the device’s future, after proving that it is possible to fly in a powered and controlled manner on Mars. NASA will now begin a new experimental phase with new operations, opening up new opportunities for aerial exploration and other jobs that could benefit missions to the Red Planet in the future. According to the US Space Agency, the new stage will begin after the helicopter completes its next flight (the fourth on Friday and the fifth). The new experimental operations result from the fact that the rover It has been above schedule to check its systems since landing in February.
Consequently, given the helicopter’s health, capacity, and telecommunications and air navigation systems that exceeded performance expectations, NASA says new opportunities have emerged for Ingenuity to continue testing without compromising the vehicle’s programming.
Consequently, new demonstration operations are scheduled for two weeks from now, starting with the sixth helicopter flight. The team will explore its air surveillance capabilities in order to obtain more accurate flight maneuvers. This change means less reliance on the Perseverance Rover team that will follow their mission of collecting soil samples and searching for microscopic life.
Creativity will be useful in monitoring the vehicle’s path, anticipating its destination, in order to find the best paths to displace the land vehicle, and anticipate steep areas or more complex access. However, NASA points out that these observation flights are a kind of reward and not a condition of perseverance to complete its mission. For this reason, Ingenuity rides will now be executed spaced out, every two or three weeks, so as not to interfere with rover operations.
It is estimated that Ingenuity’s flight operations will be completed by the end of August, so the team can prepare the probe activities well, bearing in mind that as of mid-October, Mars and Earth will be on either side of the Sun, preventing any contact with the devices on the Red Planet.
