More than two months later, the NASA Mars helicopter successfully completed its 30th flight.
CTOnews.com, August 24 (Xinhua)-- NASA announced today that the Ingenuity Mars helicopter has successfully completed its 30th flight to Mars.
Smart has been grounded since June 11 because the helicopter is in the winter and the solar-powered Smart doesn't get enough sunlight to keep its batteries recharged during the day and night. In addition, due to the accumulation of dust on Smart's solar panels, Smart cannot fly for a long time, but short-distance flights are still possible.
The 1.8-kilogram cleverness flew into the sky again on August 20, more than two months after it was grounded, making a brief jump, its 30th flight on the Red Planet. According to NASA's blog post, the flight was designed to last 33 seconds, flying only a horizontal distance of 2 meters, and finally completed the flight by standard.
In February 2021, dexterity landed on the ground of Jezero crater with NASA's Perseverance probe, which is looking for signs of ancient Martian life and collecting dozens of samples for future return to Earth.
Dexterity's initial mission was to make five flights to show that helicopters could explore Mars. The small helicopter passed the technology demonstration more than a year ago and is now working as a scout for the perseverance.
Perseverance has reached the ancient river delta, and after the weather improves a little, Smart should soon catch up with perseverance.
As the battery charging status increases, Smart will fly longer, and eventually it will be able to power its internal heaters at night, which will prevent its electronics from freezing in the cold Martian environment every night.
CTOnews.com learned that NASA also plans to upgrade its flight software in September to add new navigation capabilities so that it can better fly over the challenging river delta terrain in the coming months.