NASA has released new footage of the 25th flight of the Mars Ingenuity helicopter, revealing the longest and fastest ever small helicopter flight so far.
The black and white navigation camera of the helicopter provided an exciting video of its record-breaking 25th flight, which took place on April 18.
The helicopter traveled 704 meters (2,310 feet), at a speed of 5.5 meters per second (12 mph), the longest and fastest helicopter flight on the Red Planet to date.
“For our record-breaking flight, Ingenuity’s downward navigation camera provided us with an incredible sense of what it would be like to glide 33 feet above the the surface of Mars at 12 miles per hour.
The first frame of the video starts approximately one second following the flight. After reaching an altitude of 10 meters (33 feet), the helicopter heads to the southwest, accelerating to its maximum speed in less than three seconds.
The helicopter flies first over a group of ripples of sand, then, regarding halfway through the video, over several rocky fields. Finally, a relatively flat and featureless terrain appears below, providing a good place to land.
The 161.3-second video clip of the flight was accelerated 5 times, reducing the time to less than 35 seconds, and the navigation camera was programmed to disable it when the helicopter was within a meter (3 feet) of the surface.
The “pilots” at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory plan for Ingenuity’s self-driving flights, and send commands to the Perseverance rover on Mars, which then transmits these commands to the helicopter.
During the flight, sensors on board the helicopter provide a navigation camera, an inertial measurement unit, a laser rangefinder, and real-time data to Ingenuity’s navigation processor.
