The Ingenuity helicopter has already flown multiple times!
The Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter have been busy on Mars. Here are details about each flight, updates on Perseverance, and information about future plans for the rover-helicopter duo.
Ingenuity
First Flight
The first Helicopter flight on Mars was on the 19th of April. During the flight, Ingenuity went up, rotated a little, then landed. Ingenuity went up about 10 feet, and flew for a total of 39 seconds. I have a blog article all about the first flight, view it here.
Second Flight
Only 3 days after the first flight, the Ingenuity Helicopter was at it again! The second flight was more bold, Ingenuity flew up 16 feet, moved over 7 feet, then moved back to, and landed on the same spot that it took off from. The helicopter flew for a total of 51 seconds! Ingenuity also took another picture of it's shadow during the flight.
Third Flight
On the 25th of April, the Mars Helicopter flew its third flight. During this flight, Ingenuity flew up 16 feet, then moved downrange 164, and landed back where it started. The flight lasted 80 seconds. The Perseverance rover captured an amazing video of the entire flight. The helicopter also captured an image of the Wright Brothers airfield and the Perseverance rover.
The video above shows Ingenuity's 3rd flight, during the video the helicopter flies off camera.
Below you can also see a picture of the Perseverance rover as seen by the helicopter.
4th Flight
The 4th flight of the helicopter took place on April 30th. This time, the Perseverance rover was able to record the sounds of the helicopter. The noises are very quite, but you can still faintly hear the wind on Mars and the blades of Ingenuity. During the flight, Ingenuity reached a speed of 18 mph, flew for 117 seconds, and traveled over 800 feet round trip.
5th flight
The fifth flight of the helicopter was very different. It took place on May 7th, 2021, one week after the previous flight. During the flight, Ingenuity headed south along the same path as last time. But at the end of the flight, Ingenuity landed in a new location, instead of at it's take-off point as it usually does. Ingenuity also broke it's height record during the flight, reaching a height of 33 feet, which is taller than a two-story house.
Perseverance
The Perseverance rover has also been busy. It has spent most of its time documenting the flights of Ingenuity and relaying information back to Earth. Perseverance has also had the time to use one of it's most exciting instruments, MOXIE.
Oxygen on Mars
On April 21st, 2021, NASA announced that they had created the first oxygen on Mars!
NASA used the MOXIE instrument inside the Perseverance rover to convert carbon dioxide into breathable oxygen!
MOXIE (Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment), is a small science experiment designed to take carbon dioxide from the martian atmosphere, and convert it into oxygen. MOXIE takes the CO2 in the atmosphere and splits it into oxygen and carbon monoxide. The carbon monoxide is then released into the atmosphere. The majority of the martian atmosphere is carbon dioxide, with only a small sliver being oxygen.
This is a crucial step towards sending humans to Mars, not only is oxygen necessary for humans to breathe, but oxygen can also be used to fuel the rocket that can launch astronauts off of Mars.
Future plans for the Mars 2020 mission
Ingenuity has already completed 5 flights and is now finished with it's original mission of demonstrating powered flight on Mars. Since the helicopter has been performing so well, NASA decide to extend it's mission for a few more months. For the next few months, Ingenuity will fly more flights to scout out potential paths that the Perseverance rover can take. It will also help select future science targets for the rover. The Perseverance rover has already began it's trek south to explore it's first science target.
There are a ton of other pictures from the helicopter flights, you can look at them here.
Videos credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS
Images credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Cover GIF: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
Sources: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/nasa-s-ingenuity-mars-helicopter-completes-first-one-way-trip, https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-s-ingenuity-mars-helicopter-to-begin-new-demonstration-phase/,