Free Astronomy Magazine

7 JULY-AUGUST 2022 ASTRO PUBLISHING The current situation is discussed in great detail by Ingenuity Team Lead Teddy Tzanetos in the post “Ingenu- ity Adapts for Mars Winter Opera- tions” on the NASA Ingenuity Mission Blog. All the technical issues and the many complexities that a Martian winter may bring to the mission aside, the takeaway quote from Tzanetos’ analysis is simple – “each sol (Martian day) could be In- genuity’s last.” Despite the approaching difficult weather conditions ahead, opti- mism still abounds. Ingenuity is now 24 flights past its planned five-flight demonstration phase, has been ac- tively participating in the Persever- ance mission as the scout it is most qualified to be, and has had its mis- sion extended through at least Sep- tember 2022, when conditions on the ground will return to those that the onboard systems can compen- sate for to maintain reliable flight status. With winter and the expecta- tion of dormancy arriving soon to its mission, this is an excellent time to account for the mission and report on its several high- lights. The first flight, taken on April 19, 2021, was covered in detail in the May-June 2021 issue of this maga- zine. At 39 sec- onds, of which 30 seconds was dedi- cated to hovering in place, this first example of con- trolled, powered flight lasted 27 seconds longer than the first pow- ered flight here T he sequence in which NASA’s Persever- ance Mars rover took 62 individual images with its WATSON camera, on April 6, 2021, before they were stitched together into a single selfie. [NASA/ JPL- Caltech/MSSS] T his is the first color image of the Martian surface taken by an aerial vehicle while it was aloft. The Ingenuity Mars Helicopter captured it with its color camera during its second successful flight test on April 22, 2021. [NASA/JPL-Caltech] on Earth. In an action somewhere on the spectrum between sentimen- tality and a nod to history, the spec- ification of Ingenuity’s first flight zone as Wright Brothers Field (offi- cial airport code JZRO for Jezero Crater) also finds a small piece of fabric from Orville and Wilbur’s original 1903 Wright Flyer (that made that first short flight) at- tached to the underside of Ingenu- ity (another piece having flown with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the Apollo 11 Eagle Lunar Lander as it touched down on the Moon in 1969). The two additional flights in the ini- tial demonstration phase included longer durations (39 and 52 sec- onds) and greater round-trip dis- tances covered (4 meters and 100 meters). Flight 2 included rotations around the rotor axis (yawing) and images taken at stationary points.