The Martian helicopter Ingenuity successfully made its 25th flight over the surface of the Red Planet. The launch took place last week on Friday. The helicopter set a new record for range as well as speed, according to the Ingenuity team from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
According to NASA, on April 8 Ingenuity flew, moving at a time to a record 704 meters. The drone’s speed was 5.5 meters per second, which was also the maximum since the beginning of the mission. Experts add that the helicopter did not break the record for the duration of the flight set in August 2021, which is still 169.5 seconds.
It will be recalled that the first flight of the Ingenuity helicopter took place in April last year. The 1.8-kilogram spacecraft arrived at the planet with the Perseverance rover. The main purpose of the helicopter’s mission is to test the possibility of helicopter flights in the rarefied atmosphere of Mars. Shortly after the successful completion of the first five scheduled flights, it was decided to continue the Ingenuity mission. At this time, in 25 flights Ingenuity has covered 5824 m, spending 46 minutes and 31 seconds in the atmosphere of Mars.
The Ingenuity helicopter is now in an area where scientists believe there was a delta of the river that flowed into the lake 3.7 billion years ago. Perseverance goes there. The rover began its journey on March 14. In a month, he will have to move 5 km. The Ingenuity helicopter is used as a reconnaissance aircraft.
