We reported earlier this month that the Perseverance rover spotted its parachute and backshell in the distance.
The Ingenuity helicopter snapped better images of those items while it was in the air.
What a mess! The backshell split into pieces when it crashed to the surface.
The backshell would have hit the surface at about 126 kph/78 mph, which was the plan all along, according to NASA.
The parachute is visible in the photos along with the high- strength suspension lines.
Perseverance is the largest rover to date and it was the biggest parachute deployed on Mars. The orange-and-white parachute is 7 feet wide.
The items were essential to bring Perseverance safely to the surface.
During those seven minutes, the incoming rover comes screaming into the atmosphere of Mars, screaming into the atmosphere of Mars, screaming into the atmosphere of Mars, screaming into the atmosphere of Mars, screaming into the atmosphere of Mars, screaming into the atmosphere of Mars, screaming into the atmosphere of Mars,
The heat shield-covered backshell slows the lander to under 1,600 kph.
It is safe to deploy the supersonic parachute at that point. The Sky Crane is used to gently lower the rover to the surface after the parachute slows the lander enough to where the backshell and parachute are ejected.
JPL-Caltech is a part of NASA.
It all has to happen automatically, with no input from engineers back on Earth.
NASA engineers love to see these items, even in their crashed state, because they can give valuable insights for future missions.
The perspective engineers were hoping for was provided by Ingenuity's 26th flight. Ingenuity took 10 aerial images of the debris field.
One of the upcoming planned missions that will benefit the most from these images is the future Mars Sample Return Lander, which is part of a multi-mission campaign that would bring Perseverance's samples of Martian rocks, atmosphere, and sediment back to Earth for detailed analysis.
Engineers for this mission requested the images from the Ingenuity team.
Teddy Tzanetos, Ingenuity's team lead at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in a press release that NASA extended Ingenuity flight operations to perform pioneer flights such as this.
Ingenuity covers new ground and offers a perspective no previous planetary mission could achieve. Mars Sample Return's request is a perfect example of the utility of aerial platforms.
A final verdict will need several weeks of analysis.
Perseverance had the best documented Mars landing in history, with cameras showing everything from parachute inflation to touchdown, according to Ian Clark, former Perseverance systems engineer and now Mars Sample Return ascent phase lead.
Ingenuity's images offer a different perspective. It will be amazing if they either reinforce that our systems worked as we think they worked or provide a single dataset of engineering information that we can use for Mars Sample Return planning. If not, the pictures are still amazing.
The article was published by Universe Today. The original article is worth a read.
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