Posted on 09/28/2022 3:35:23 PM PDT by Ezekiel
NASA's solar-powered Ingenuity Mars Helicopter has completed its 33rd flight on the Red Planet. The tiny rotorcraft made this 55.2-second flight on September 24, reaching an altitude of 10 meters (33 ft) and covering 111.24 meters (365 ft) at a max speed of 4.75 meters per second.
The helicopter rode to Mars attached to the belly of the Perseverance rover in July 2020 and landed at the planet's Jezero Crater on February 18, 2021. It has survived over a year beyond its original planned lifetime on the planet.
The Sept. 24 flight was the flight for Ingenuity this month aimed at repositioning of the solar-powered helicopter. The helicopter's flights are autonomous. Pilots at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages the project for NASA, plan the flights and send commands to the Perseverance Mars rover, which then relays those commands to the helicopter.
(Excerpt) Read more at devdiscourse.com ...
Thanks for posting!
An amazing piece of tech. I was curious as to the cost of the helicopter, so I googled it. $80M. Not exactly cheap. On the other hand it is a one-of, it worked, and it is less than 1/1000th of a billion dollars. And we’ve pitched 10’s of billions of dollars into the Ukraine war for munitions.
Doesn’t Ginny deserve to have a feature of Martian terrain named after her? Mount Ingenuity? Ginny’s Crater?
"Mount Ingenuity" is an excellent idea.
If nothing else, all those shadow pics earn Ginny the distinction of being the true "Face on Mars".
Move aside Cydonia, you've been upstaged. 😄
What is that?
Looks like it should be the Trump POTUS 47 mobile.
Could you just image? The Swamp is no match for that there vehicle.
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