The Ingenuity helicopter captured a unique bird’s eye view of the equipment that helped the Perseverance rover land on Mars.
During its one-year flight on April 19, the small helicopter took pictures of the parachute used during the Perseverance landing – often called “7 minutes of horror” because it happens faster than radio signals can reach Earth from Mars – on February 18, 2021, he also noticed the conical hull, which helped protect the rover and Ingenuity during the voyage from Earth to Mars and during its fiery, sinking descent to the Martian surface.
Engineers working on the Mars Sample Return program, an ambitious and multi-mission process for returning Martian samples collected by Perseverance to Earth by 2030, asked if Ingenuity could collect these images during its 26th flight.
Studying the components that allow safe landing can help them prepare for future missions to the red planet that will require landing and even launching from the Martian surface for the first time.
“NASA has expanded Ingenuity’s flights to pioneer flights like this,” said Teddy Tsanetos, head of Ingenuity’s team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, in a statement.
“Every time we are in the air, Ingenuity covers new ground and offers a perspective that no previous planetary mission could have achieved. The Mars Sample Return reconnaissance request is a perfect example of the usefulness of Mars air platforms. “
As it enters, descends and lands, the spacecraft collides with scorching temperatures and gravitational forces as it plunges into the Martian atmosphere at almost 12,500 miles per hour (20,000 kilometers per hour).
Previously, we only saw images of discarded chariots from a rover’s point of view, such as an image taken by Perseverance showing the parachute and the rear shell from a distance. Aerial imagery, first taken by Ingenuity at 26 feet (8 meters) in the air, provides more detail.
“Perseverance had the best documented Mars landing in history, with cameras showing everything from parachuting to touchdown,” said Ian Clark, a former Perseverance systems engineer and current head of the Mars Sample Return ascent phase at JPL. .
“But Ingenuity’s images offer a different perspective. If they either confirm that our systems worked the way we think they do, or provide even a set of engineering data that we can use to plan Mars Sample Return, we will be amazing. And if not, the photos are still phenomenal and inspiring. “
The rear shell can be seen amid a field of debris it created after hitting the Martian surface while traveling at about 78 miles per hour (126 kilometers per hour). But the protective cover of the rear shell seems to be intact, as well as the 80 suspension lines connecting it to the parachute.
An orange-and-white parachute covered in dust is visible, but the canopy shows no damage. It was the largest parachute used on Mars to date, 70.5 feet (21.5 meters) wide. The team will continue to analyze the images to determine if the parachute has undergone any changes over the next few weeks.
During Ingenuity’s 26th air trip, the helicopter flew a total of 1,181 feet (360 meters). So far, he has recorded 49 minutes of total flight time and traveled 3.9 miles (6.3 kilometers) in the last year.
“Ingenuity did a lot of maneuvers to get the shots we needed, but we were confident because there were complex maneuvers on flights 10, 12 and 13,” said Howard Grip, Ingenuity’s co-pilot at JPL. “Our landing site set us up well to depict an area of interest to the Perseverance research team on Flight 27, near the Séítah ridge.”
The helicopter and rover arrived at an ancient river delta, where millions of years ago water flowed into Jezero Crater.
The impressive delta rises more than 130 feet (40 meters) above the bottom of the crater and is dotted with rocks, pockets of sand and jagged rocks – and may be the best place to look for signs of ancient life, if it ever existed. on Mars.
Ingenuity has the crucial task of exploring two dry river channels to see which of the Stubbornness to use to climb to the top of the delta. It can also share images of features that could become potential scientific targets for the rover.
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