NASA's Ingenuity helicopter flew its 10th mission to Mars successfully on Saturday. This brings its total distance to Mars to over a mile (roughly 1.60 km) and captures important images that will be useful to its friend, Perseverance rover.AdvertisementNASA posted a tweet early Sunday confirming that the i ts helicopter flew over Raised Ridges. This area is part of a fracture network that NASA finds fascinating and which the Perseverance team is looking into visiting in the future. Many fracture systems are conduits for fluids to reach underground. Raised Ridges would be a great spot to examine evidence of Martian past life and drill a sample for further investigation if water indeed flows through them.Ingenuity operations leader Teddy Tzanetos gave a status update on Friday that described the planned flight path of the helicopter. Tzanetos stated that flight 10 was Ingenuity's most difficult endeavor in terms of performance and navigation. It had 10 distinct waypoints, a nominal height of 40 feet (12 metres), which was a new record and an increase over the 33 feet (10 meter) achieved on its ninth flight. According to him, the flight will take approximately 165 seconds.Tzanetos stated that Ingenuity would take off from its sixth airport and move south-by-southwest for approximately 165 feet (50m). The helicopter will then take two images from Raised Ridges, one looking south and the other looking north. The helicopter will fly further to the west and northwest, taking photos from every vantage point. NASA plans to create stereo images using the data from these waypoints.Ingenuity's accomplishments and remarkable maneuvers are also highlighted in the status update. It has survived on Mars for 107 sols (or Martian days), which is 76 more than its original mission.The helicopter also performed two flight software upgrades to enhance its flight capabilities and capture color images. Ingenuity flew for more than 14 minutes on Mars. This is more than 112% more than its tech demos performance. Ingenuity has also provided new views of Mars, with 43 color images at 13 megapixels and 809 black-and-white navigation images.AdvertisementIngenuity has widened our perspectives on Mars and given us the amazing gift of knowledge in these difficult times. Let's cheer for it and take advantage of it while we still can.
